Bound
by Nashidesei
Summary: SephirothxCloud  What if things had been different? Enemies by circumstance, tied together in more ways than they can grasp, Cloud and Sephiroth find themselves bound by Gaea's power until it's hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.
1. Then the World Fell Away

**Disclaimer:** All elements related to Final Fantasy VII are the intellectual property of Square-Enix. This work of fiction is a non-profit, fan-made tribute.

**Author's Note: **It's good to be back.

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**I: Then the World Fell Away**

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Hurried footsteps made him whirl, spinning to face his aggressor an instant, just an instant too late.

"My home, my mom, everything—give it _back_!"

The words came out in a rush, echoing off metal and stone, reverberating back inward to repeat the demand over, met at first only by the sound of blood spattering on the floor. The sword plunged in, fought to continue, and then finally broke through with the snap of a scapula unable to stand against the strain. The bloodied point protruded from the madman's back, straight through his shoulder blade, and the metal scraped against bone as he fell to his knees with a barely audible gasp.

Sephiroth's mouth worked silently, gloved fingers pushing frantically at the massive blade driven through his chest. He took a ragged breath, blood trailing out the corner of his mouth, and looked up at his killer with wide, frenzied eyes—but all in vain. The boy didn't move an inch, all his diminutive weight against the borrowed weapon in his shaking hands.

Another moment passed before Shinra's greatest elite shuddered, back arching as his mouth went wide and gasped for breath, then at last fell limp against the sword. The glow in his open eyes slowly faded, burning green darkening to a deep emerald as the inhuman energy in him ebbed.

Cloud choked as he finally pulled the blade back out, Zack's oversized Buster Sword so heavy in his hands that it immediately fell, the blade colliding with the makeshift walkway he stood on with a _clang_. For several long minutes, the only sound to be heard—between the hisses and hums of the reactor at work—was Cloud gasping for breath, fighting against hyperventilation, fighting not to scream.

Finally he sunk to his knees, white-knuckled hands still clenched tight around the grip of his best friend's sword, and struggled to let go. Finger after finger uncurled, stiff and hurting, and then he reached up and tore off his helmet with a choking growl through his clenched teeth.

"I trusted you!" He yelled, voice breaking. "I—I believed in you, I even—I—" He bit back a sob and shook his head, at last dislodging his other hand, allowing him to reach up and bury his face in the both of them.

He hurt. Everywhere, every inch of him was screaming. Of all the people in the world to do this, of all the places in the world for it to be done…

He choked out a sob, rubbing furiously at his eyes. He couldn't just sit here, not while there was still a chance that someone out there could be saved. He couldn't just sit here while there was still a chance for Tifa, Zack, for any of them.

He swallowed, rubbed his eyes once more, and pushed himself up. His knees gave out instantly, and he landed on all fours with a grunt of frustration. "Come _on_," he hissed, whisper drowned out by a loud hiss from the ventilation system. Cloud clenching his blue-grey eyes shut. "Come on, come on, get up."

He was supposed to be on his way to becoming a SOLDIER, and SOLDIERs didn't stay still. SOLDIERs didn't fall. That was a world away now, a dream from a life that was gone forever—and a part of him already understood that—but it was the only thing he had that could possibly force him back to his feet. The only thing that could make sure he kept breathing after what he'd done. So, with another deep breath, he pushed himself up again. It was tentative at first, his body unfolded joint by joint, but finally he stood straight and opened his eyes.

There lay Sephiroth, sprawled forward on the mess of metal and wiring that led up to that horrible tank, still glowing from within ever so slightly, silver-white hair flowing out around him like liquid platinum, dyed perfect scarlet where it touched his blood.

Cloud clenched his eyes shut. "I'm sorry," he breathed, voice shaky. "I'm so sorry."

He tried to tell himself that it wasn't Sephiroth, that the man he'd known would never do such a thing, would never think of doing such a thing—but while he had come to the conflict fairly late, Cloud had been part of the war in Wutai. He'd seen what Sephiroth was capable of, the lengths he was willing to go to do what he felt necessary. Why burning Nibelheim to the ground was necessary remained the real question, why everyone present for the revelation regarding the circumstances of his birth had to die, but even so Cloud couldn't manage to separate everything that had happened from everything he'd known.

Sephiroth would never hurt him, that much had always been clear. Those Cloud loved were an entirely different story; regardless of his demand when he struck that perfect warrior down, when he ran the man he'd admired so much straight through, no one could bring them back once they were gone.

That was why he had to move. Once they were gone, they were gone, but they might not have all been gone yet. There could still be a chance. Cloud forced himself to look away, forced himself to move, step after step after step, each one a struggle.

"I'm so sorry, Seph," he murmured once more, making it off the stepping line and onto proper floor, giving him a chance to lean on the wall for support. He didn't look back, couldn't say any more, but he shook his head and gave his eyes another brush of his knuckles as he finally stepped out.

That left Sephiroth alone, and that was a mistake.

The resonance of Cloud's overwhelming spirit distanced at last, Sephiroth woke back up cell by cell. One gloved hand twitched ever so slightly and the torn flesh on his chest slowly began to pull inward, knitting itself back together. His arms pulled in as well, the movement slow and halting, and the left turned to brace his hand against the floor—the other stayed with fingers tangled in Jenova's silken, silver-white hair. Fragments of bone, all that remained of his shoulder blade and a good several ribs, rearranged themselves in proper order and fused with a flare of white-hot energy so bright it glowed through his skin, burning muscle and tissue from the inside.

The flash of pain made Sephiroth shove himself up on his hands, throwing back his head and taking a ragged breath as his heart gave one rough beat, then another; the light in his eyes rekindled, glowing brightly, and his pupils tightened back into slits.

He clenched a hand at his chest, fingers slipping into what remained of the wound even as it closed up, black leather sinking into bloody, ripped muscle while he fought to breathe again, struggled against the pain. When he pulled his hand away his glove was soaked with blood, aching straight through, and after a moment he reached up to fit the tip of his middle finger between his teeth, clenching at the seam of his glove to rip it off and bare the pitch black numeral I burned just under his knuckles.

Having it exposed to open air made the ache fade, somewhat, but it was a weak reprieve when compared to the pain still burning through him with each uneven heartbeat.

Sephiroth had never suffered any damage to his heart before, much less having it cut in two, so this was a learning experience. Pain like this was entirely new, an unknown adversary he only felt he could face because of the subtle, singsong whispering in his head that told him so.

The arrhythmia of his heartbeat slowly steadied, too fast at first, but calming by the second as valves and tubes and muscle pulled back together. Finally Sephiroth let out that ragged breath he'd held and pushed himself up to a sitting position to better catch his breath. That blow, that _death _had taken more out of him than he was accustomed to.

His pale skin was ashen, hair and clothing soaked in blood, but still he rose to his feet with a pained wince and limped toward the door. He would come back for the rest of Mother later; right now that burning resonance that was Cloud drew him from the chamber, the last heart still beating steady in this place pulling him away. He wasn't finished.

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Cloud knelt and gathered Tifa up into his arms, lifting her carefully to move her away from the steps and lean her up against the wall, prop her up so she wouldn't have to move herself. His arms were sticky and his very skin stained red by the time he lowered her back down and dropped once more to his knees before her. Eyes closed, hair caked with blood…Cloud brushed a hand along the curve of her cheek, grey eyes giving a sharp sting. The touch left a streak of crimson over her suntanned skin.

"Tifa," he murmured, praying for her to open her eyes. "Tifa, _please_…" She didn't move. Didn't stir, didn't so much as breathe. He was too late, again. Cloud bit his bottom lip and pulled her against him, burying his face in her thick brown hair and holding her tight. He wanted to apologize, but couldn't bring himself to force out the words. He was sorry, so sorry, but his voice just wouldn't work. He couldn't through the death and the blood, all brought on too quickly. Everything Cloud knew and loved was gone.

And all he could do was try to apologize.

Something rustled, scuffed the walk at the top of the stairs, and Cloud's breath caught in his throat, heart dropping into his stomach when he whirled to see the entrance to Jenova's chamber.

Red spattered on the black of his leathers, Sephiroth leaned against the doorframe—such as it was—and took a wheezing breath. "You should…know better," he coughed.

Memories flashed through Cloud's head, velvet tones in teasing admonitions, making fun so much more than administering punishment. It most certainly wasn't the first time Sephiroth had said that to him in the past year.

"H-How—"

No reason to ask how he came back—the mako would see to that if Jenova didn't—and that wasn't the thought on his mind to begin with.

It was selfish, but more than anything Cloud wanted to know how Sephiroth could do this. How the man he'd known so well, been so close to, could possibly do something like this. How he could become this monster and still speak the same words he always had, still sound like himself.

Sephiroth gave a weak, tired chuckle took Cloud's heart and turned it on its end. "You need to—to _ask_?" His burning green eyes narrowed, white teeth bared in a wide, predatory grin. "You need to ask, even after…" The general swallowed thickly. "What you did. After what you…what _all_ of you…did?"

"None of us did anything!" Cloud responded, voice a note too high, throat burning.

Now Sephiroth barked out a laugh, close to doubling over in the doorway, leaning heavily on the metal for support. Jenova's head, clutched so tightly in his hand, brushed the floor as he moved. "Not _you_. You. _Them_." He dropped his voice to a whisper, still pained and halting but not quite as disjointed from word to word anymore. "You killed us all. All save one—save me. I'm simply—returning the favor."

Cloud couldn't help the automatic cry of "Why?!" he gave in reply, couldn't quite bite it back in time. He knew what Sephiroth believed, knew some of what he'd read in the library deep below the mansion, knew what he was; as such he shouldn't have had to ask. He knew what Sephiroth was referring to, knew the mass genocide of the Ancients was what spurred him into action.

But why now, why here, why Sephiroth, of all people? The chances of everything falling into place like this, all the pieces being in this place, of all places in the world, they were so slim it didn't seem possible. Everything had just happened so fast, too fast.

Sephiroth's response was an almost snakelike hiss, and he straightened as he spoke, lurching his way out of the entry at last. "This—This is why I was born." Down the steps, he passed Cloud without giving him a glance. "You ask why." Down the next set of steps. "I ask…why you can't see it yourself."

Cloud wanted to charge after him, pushed to his feet to do just that, but the moment he disappeared out into the next room, silhouetted by burning bluegreen as he moved over the Reactor's open mako tank, a low rasp caught the young man's attention. Cloud turned back, dark eyes wide as he looked up the steps to the lesser tank caved in around Zack's shattered, bleeding form.

"Cloud. _Cloud._"

He was there in a heartbeat, fleet-footed up the steps in spite of the pain boiling inside him, burning him from head to toe and deeper still, into bones and brain and heart. Zack was alive. If Zack was alive that would be enough, just one person left out of them all would be enough. When he joined Shinra, Zack was all he'd had—he could handle that again. He could.

Zack was alive, and when Cloud reached him he moved to drop to his knees to heft him up. Zack's hand shot up and caught his arm, halting him.

"Finish…him off," the SOLDIER choked, wide violet eyes shifting in and out of focus, pupils dilating and tightening of their own accord, trying to settle with so little blood to fuel the constriction process. "Sephiroth. You have to—_please_."

There was something else there, some pain in Zack's glowing eyes that made every pain in Cloud burn anew. He was right, Sephiroth had to die. He had to be stopped, he couldn't be permitted to leave the reactor. But Cloud could tell that wasn't the reason for Zack's pleading, wasn't the purpose behind that heartbreak in his voice and face. That wasn't what made him beg.

Their Sephiroth was gone. The monster wearing his shell, pretty as it was, had to be stopped before he could do any more. Before any more of what he'd been could be sullied to outside eyes.

To save Sephiroth as Cloud and Zack had known him, he had to die. This would have to be their last memory of him, final recollection for the two people who cared about him most in the world, but perhaps it wouldn't have to be the same for the rest of the world. Perhaps Rufus and Reno and Tseng could remember him as he'd been, not as he'd become.

Sephiroth deserved that much. Deserved to be remembered as something other than a monster.

Cloud put his hand over Zack's and gave a squeeze, nodding his head. No words exchanged, Zack's grip loosened and his arm fell back to his side with a painful sounding clang where wrist impacted the metal and Cloud straightened properly, turning to rush out after Sephiroth.

Chasing the man he loved, pushing him forward to his doom.

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Every step was pain, new and old, echoes of a childhood Sephiroth had never wanted, of an upbringing no one should have been meant to endure. The screaming in his joints brought up the scent of alcohol and sterile cotton, of mako and another glowing fluid, violet and thick as syrup, driven into him time and time again by pale, gnarled hands.

They were finally going to pay for what they'd done, for creating him this way, for using the last of the planet's true heirs as their own weapon.

Sephiroth knew, because Mother told him so, that he was not like the other Ancients. He was special, better than them all, brighter and stronger, like the sun compared to the pinpricks of stars driven into the night sky. When the sun rose, the stars disappeared and only it remained to cast light and warmth on the planet far below; Sephiroth had risen, the stars of his kin extinguished forever, and his light would sear the planet raw. He would cauterize the gaping wounds left by humankind, singe off the old skin and allow new to grow.

It would hurt, him and the planet and Mother, but he knew it would work. He knew that this was what he had to do. Since the first instant when Mother's eyes cast down on this fading rock, she had known what had to be done. Now it was her son's turn to fulfill the destiny she had never been capable of.

He staggered along the catwalk, Jenova's hair trailing along one the platform just beside his boot, his steps grew more certain as he moved, the glowing energy far below replenishing his own strength and healing even those wounds too deep for him to touch. The pain faded and he stood up straight again, angling his head back to take a deep, steadily-clearing breath.

"Sephiroth!"

He angled his head back just slightly further, barely turning to look back over his shoulder. Cloud stood with his hands clenched into tight fists, face flushed with rage, and Sephiroth found a part of him smiling at the redness in his cheeks, the sweat he could smell on his skin.

He had seen it so many times before, but it had never seemed so beautiful as it was right now.

When Cloud rushed at him it was made abundantly clear that this was no time to think on the way the light shone in his eyes, the way his hair fell over his face, sunshine blond so perfectly complimenting the flush of exertion in his cheeks. Cloud Strife, Sephiroth thought to himself, was a work of art. What a shame he'd been born in such substandard skin.

Sephiroth spun, angling Masamune just so, and impaled Cloud on the finely honed metal using his own inertia. Straight through the chest, just as Cloud had done to him, but in this case the blade reached Cloud's scapula and stopped, point scraping against the inside of his shoulder blade. It wasn't enough force to break the bone.

Of course, the son of Jenova could change that easily enough, but that would be too fast. That would make those beautiful eyes go dead too quickly, and that was the last thing he wanted. Some part of him, under the burning and the blood song howling in his head, couldn't bear the thought of watching those eyes go blank, couldn't stand to think of watching that pain twist Cloud's face.

He raised the blade, lifting Cloud off the ground, and stared into those dark eyes. Cloud had caught him off-guard once, if he thought it was going to happen again he clearly didn't know the general as well as he'd thought he did.

"Don't…" Sephiroth licked his lips, dry croak of his voice pulling back out into that deep, confident tone he was meant to have. Like the sound of silk, the sound of shadows and burning. "Don't push your luck."

Cloud looked at him for a long, pained moment, straining to even breath where he hung, then both hands came up in jerking, shaking movements to allow him to wrap his hands around the over-long blade just where it met his chest. The blade cut through his gloves, through his hands and fingers to meet bone, carving at tendons with ease, but still he held on. Taking a strained breath, Cloud gathered his strength and jerked downward.

His booted feet impacted the floor with a unified clank, and Sephiroth could only murmur his disbelief as Cloud set his jaw, blood running out the corner of his mouth and strained grunt coming out in a bloody gurgle, and mustered all the strength he could to lift the sword himself.

Sephiroth clung to his sword even as Cloud's impossible strength peaked and the general's feet lifted off from the catwalk. With a cry of exertion and rage, crimson bubbling in his throat, the young man spun to send Sephiroth and his sword into the shining green below; just as the arc completed, Sephiroth gave one final push.

He could feel the bone shatter around his beloved weapon, and Cloud screamed at the top of his lungs as the long silvery point protruded from his back.

Sephiroth held tight, and continued to fall.

Cloud fell with him.

The air tore at them both, supercharged with the planet's own lifeblood, particles of energy burning at Cloud's skin and tearing at Sephiroth's hair as they fell. Ancient, boy, and remnant of Jenova hit the glowing fluid with a great splash, swallowed instantly, material of Cloud's clothes sizzling in contact with the pure liquid power, sending up the faintest plumes of blue-grey smoke.

Cloud's head broke the surface once more, just long enough for him to scream as every cell in his body went white hot, then Sephiroth's weight and grip on Masamune pulled him down after him.

Then the world fell away, leaving nothing but the pain—and eventually that too stopped, overtaken by the deepest, purest dark.


	2. Returned To Dark

**Author's Note: **I wish I could just skip this whole section, but unfortunately plot needs a basis. Alas.

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**II: Returned To Dark**

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The darkness was permeating, thick and writhing, coiling like a living thing, and Cloud drifted in it. It stifled, pushed in on his arms and legs, washed over his face and covered his eyes and mouth tight. He couldn't hear, couldn't see—but he could feel. First it was just the shivering, feather-light touch of the dark boiling around him. Then there was an electric tension, like right before lightning stuck, the feeling of eyes boring into his back, the sensation of someone about to speak.

Oh, could he _feel_.

Cloud felt everything, a planet's worth of knowledge flashing around him, dancing over his skin and singing up through his bones, tickling the inside of his skull. It was like thought, if thought could touch. But it wasn't just _a_ thought, it was every thought, every word left unspoken, every image ever seen or hidden and every sound ever heard or uttered left subtle—or not so subtle—imprints on his very skin.

Most weren't familiar, but every now and then something would flare that he knew, something he recognized even if he had never experienced it like this before.

He _felt_ his mother's voice, the words in her letters, the taste of homemade bread fresh out of the oven shuddered through him in jerking, hesitant touches. The sensation of Zack's love, both for him and for Sephiroth, danced up his skin in melancholy streaks of pain and heartache. He felt Liam, the other Shinra Regular assigned to this last horrible mission, ask what Nibelheim was like.

He felt Sephiroth _laugh_, and that feeling opened a floodgate.

He felt everything. Felt the words in all those books Sephiroth had pored over for so long, felt the truth of the general's birth resonating deep in his skeleton, felt the sickening certainty, that confirmation that Sephiroth was not and would never be anything short of a manmade monster meant to be an Ancient.

Cloud felt everything Sephiroth had done, and it overwhelmed him.

"Shhh," breathed a low, feminine voice. "I won't let it hurt you."

He _saw_ a flash of light, heard a single, perfect note, tasted clean air and smelled rain—and the feeling stopped. Cloud slowly, painfully opened his eyes, squinting at first against the overwhelming brightness before him, the force strong enough to banish the dark and all the knowledge it forced into his skin.

As his eyes adjusted, the light took form. Arms, legs, long flowing hair…she remained a perfect white silhouette at first, then slowly color filtered into her shape, the brightness still not to abating a bit.

The girl opened her eyes and Cloud thought he would drown in the perfect green of them. Not like Sephiroth's at all; there was a light there, but it wasn't born of mako or magic, of any alien energy. This was the pure green of life itself.

The stories his mother told him as a child came rushing back—sounds and sights and smells more than feelings—and Cloud whispered one tentative, quiet inquiry.

"…Gaea?"

The girl blinked, then laughed. "Flattering," she giggled with a quick shake of her head, auburn hair drifting slowly in time behind her, "but no."

"But then—" His brow furrowed. "A-Are you dead?"

Once again the beautiful young girl shook her head. "I'm a Cetra," she explained with that unwavering smile, all warmth and purity and so, so different from what Cloud had experienced in the events just prior. "An Ancient. My duty to Gaea is to prepare souls like yours, the heartbroken worthy, to rejoin with the planet."

The heartbroken worthy. Cloud thought that she had better attend to Zack next—or first, even, he had known Sephiroth so much longer—but didn't say as much. He didn't want to make her leave, didn't want to lose sight of that smile and the light it brought.

"So…I'm dead."

The Cetra nodded, but it lacked any form of sadness or resignation. That smile still didn't so much as flicker. While it should have been unsettling or upsetting in some way, Cloud wasn't put off in the least. If anything, her lack of distress over the matter made him feel better.

"Where are we?" He asked, turning at last to look around. The dark had given way to endless white, bright enough to burn but cool as an autumn day. "The Lifestream?"

Arching her eyebrows appreciatively, the Cetra tilted her head slightly. "Someone did his homework." Cloud gave a lopsided smile, unable to help himself. He felt so good here, so comfortable and calm. He could smile without remorse, so long as she kept smiling back. When the girl shook her head once more, however, she spiked that contentment with confusion. "We're in the healing grounds. You can't expect to return to the planet in such pain, can you?"

Cloud blinked, wondering for a split second what pain it was she was talking about. Then she leaned in reached up to brush back his hair and put her lips to his forehead. A warmth flowed through him, and it was as though he could feel the sorrow draining out through his fingertips, through the soles of his feet.

With each flare of heartache, there was a memory. One by one, it all came back. One by one, it didn't matter anymore. Memory by memory, Cloud was contented.

There had been blood and fire, death and pain, his mother, Liam, Tifa, Zack.

And Sephiroth. Beautiful, inhuman Sephiroth. The man he'd wanted to be, the man he'd come to care for so deeply in the last year. The man who meant more to him than anything else in the world.

Cloud had been fifteen when they met, and it was because of Zack. Cloud had never dreamed things would go as far as they had after that first awkward, horrible, fantastic meeting. The image was clear in his mind, a memory now laced with pain and regret, of Sephiroth smiling at him from across the table in the mess hall at eleven o'clock at night, a mug of hot coffee sitting in front of him. Zack to his left, they'd been discussing something beyond Cloud's recollection when he stumbled in, looking for some tea to help him sleep.

Zack in the memory waved him over, but his features were a blur. Now, as then, all Cloud could see was Sephiroth. Those green eyes flicked toward him, slit pupils barely noticeable from this distance, and then he looked away again. Now, as then, Cloud didn't mean a thing to him.

The Cetra girl pulled back, brow creasing slightly in concern. "That man," she murmured, hands on Cloud's shoulders seeming to somehow hold the memory in place. "Who is he?"

Cloud closed his eyes and prepared to respond—but found himself cut off when a deep voice, smooth as velvet and sharp as steel, broke through the silence.

"That would be me."

He and the girl turned with a mutual start, wide-eyed, to see the man from Cloud's memory floating in the white. His sword was drawn, expression calm and collected, and Cloud's heart skipped a beat. The dark flickered in the corners of his vision, slowly but surely forcing its way back in, overwhelming the brightness that the Cetra girl had made.

"Sephiroth…"

The man brushed back his snow-on-silver hair and cocked his head to one side. "Did the planet really think she could get rid of me so easily?" He asked, one impossibly green set of eyes meeting another. The Cetra's hands, still braced against Cloud's shoulders, began to shake; Sephiroth voiced a single low, chuckle, then lifted his head. "Gaea!" He shouted. "I won't be ignored! Don't think to take what's mine and leave me behind!"

Finally the girl drew away from Cloud, hands clasping as though in prayer, just in front of her chest. "It's him," she breathed. "The Terror from the Heavens—the Calamity."

"Once again you're mistaken." Sephiroth's smile broadened, and Cloud heard something rise up behind him, some twisted, burning song that made his head ache and pulled the pain back into him memory by memory. "You're referring to my mother."

Here, where Cloud knew and felt everything, something in that statement felt wrong, struck a note quite clearly off-key; Cloud had no idea why. He'd seen the research, skimmed the books, he'd been there when Zack tried to force Sephiroth to eat something and found him a hollow shell slowly filling with rage.

"Jenova's…son?" The darkness strengthened further at the sound of the Ancient's name, and the girl shook her head and drew back further from Cloud.

Cloud felt very much like he was being forced to witness a conversation between gods. Son of Jenova and daughter of Gaea, green against green—something in him whispered that this is how it had always been, how it was meant to be. It made his insides burn to think about.

"Gaea would never allow such a thing to happen!" The young woman asserted at last, a fire lighting in her eyes. It wasn't disbelief, but determination: Sephiroth could not be Jenova's child because the planet would never have allowed him to be born if he was. Her certainty pushed back the dark just the slightest bit. "She would _never_ let Jenova have a child!"

Sephiroth drew forward, the dark intensifying with him, pulling close enough to Cloud that he could feel it, feather-soft and burning around his ankles, at his back. He winced, trying to pull away but unable to move—

And then Sephiroth wrapped an arm around his waist possessively, and familiarity welled up within him more than powerful enough to push back the shadows.

"Wouldn't she?" Sephiroth countered, leaning casually against Cloud's back. "It doesn't seem to me she's done much to protect her children recently." He smile faded slightly. "What good has she done for you? Pulling you away from your life while you sleep so that you can help these _usurpers_—" His fingers dug into Cloud's waist. "—find rest, while I'm left to drift, unable to be healed, hardly seems _kind_."

"Your fate wasn't her decision!" She clenched her hands into fists, her voice turning sharp. "She could have saved you, if you let her! You're the one who made the choice—"

"To fight for my people!" He completed, holding Cloud so tightly it bordered on painful. "_Our_ people! We're the last of the world's lineage, the last of the true heirs to this planet! You're like me, how can you not understand?"

The Cetra's eyes flashed in a way entirely unrelated to mako. "I am nothing like you!"

That made Sephiroth release Cloud at last, moving forward closer to the auburn-haired Ancient. "This world is ours, not theirs! Not _his_!" He gestured sharply at Cloud. Why would your precious Gaea heal him, child of traitors, while we're left to suffer?"

"All people have the power to choose their own path," she hissed, unmoved. "Everyone is free to choose their own fate—you and I and _him_ included."

Sephiroth's expression twisted into rage, one hand shooting out and clenching tight around the girl's neck. "I never chose to be like this!"

The Cetra reached up with shaking hands to push at his fingers, to try in vain to make him let go. The darkness pulled inward, tighter and closer.

"I never chose to be born as some twisted thing, made in a lab from a monster woman dug up from the dirt!"

The shadows coiled around Cloud's wrists, licked up his legs like fire, threatened to blacken his vision once more. The Cetra girl's light dimmed as she struggled, fighting with will alone against the spiritual battle taking place.

Cloud ground his teeth and shouted as loud as he could. "Stop it!"

The darkness shattered.

Sephiroth turned to face him, eyes wide, but said nothing.

"Stop it, please," Cloud begged, the memory of blood sharp in his throat, fire burning behind his eyes. "_Please_, Sephiroth, let her go! This has to stop!"

**What has to stop?**

The voice was gentle, deep and soothing, distinctly feminine and utterly unobtrusive. It felt as if it had been there all along, and a part of them had always known that. No one so much as batted an eye.

"Everything!" Cloud responded, throwing out his arms, unquestioning of how he could suddenly move. "This, all of this—the pain, the lies and secrets, everything Sephiroth's been through, everything it's made him do—"

**Given another chance, would you stop it?**

Here he hesitated. Could he stop it? Could he hold back the world, protect those he loved where they couldn't even protect themselves? Was _anyone_ strong enough?

Cloud lowered his head slightly. "I don't think I've got the power to stop it. Not outright." The corners of his mouth pulled into the faintest beginnings of a smile. "But I would fight with everything I have."

A cool breeze swept by him, tendrils of air running through his thick hair, brushing along the curve of his cheek.

Very well then, young Cloud. As your name denotes, you will watch over your world. As your name denotes, you will bring the purifying rain that will cleanse the parched land on which you rest your feet. And, as your name denotes…

The wind swept past Cloud, pulling him forward, and circled Sephiroth, pulling him back and away from the young Ancient, returning him to Cloud's side.

**…You will hold at bay the terrible lightning that could tear your world asunder.**

Sephiroth's eyes narrowed, the wind around them strengthening, pushing them closer and closer, back to back. "What are you doing?"

**I will protect my children, Sephiroth.**

Lancing pain flared in Cloud's head, starting at his crown and rushing through every nerve, every vein and bone in his body. Sephiroth's breath caught as the same burning agony rushed through his own frame, wracking each muscle, each nerve with pain beyond description.

He held a hand to his head, Masamune still clutched in the other, and bit back a cry. Cloud didn't fare so well.

**I will protect my children from themselves…**

The pressure holding them together pushed harder, and Cloud threw back his head and screamed, writhing while upright, squirming and twitching and begging for it to stop. His back pushed against Sephiroth's hard enough for bones to begin to bend and warp—and finally break.

**…And from you.**

At last Sephiroth screamed, and the world around them instantly returned to dark.

* * *

The first thing he knew was that he hurt. Everywhere. Pain in his eyes, his hands, his mouth, his head, every part of him aching. He didn't dare to move at first, the slow motion of his chest caused by breathing alone sent lancing pain through him, up the back of his throat.

He wondered why he hurt, thoughts lost in a haze, and tried to recall through the muddled confusion what he'd done the day before to wake up in this much pain. It wasn't until a deep, velvety voice cut through his mind that things took any semblance of coherence.

"_Yesterday,"_ the voice intoned gently, _"you died."_

Cloud's eyes snapped open, and he immediately regretted it. The intensity of daylight burned his eyes, enough to finally spur him into action; he groaned turned to bury his face, pulling up a pillow to cover his head rather than cradle it.

Then he realized that he had a pillow to hide under, and that made him blink in confusion. Slowly, he rolled onto his front and pushed himself up, biting back a cry of pain and struggling not to buckle at the joints. Cloud looked down at the bed on which he lay, utterly bewildered, eyes adjusting slowly to the light.

He found he was stripped from the waist up, clad only in a pair of loose, oversized cotton slacks, and his left hand was bandaged from knuckles to wrist. There were other dressings on him as well; both elbows, down to the wrist on his right arm, and he could feel something wound about his feet as well. Lifting up the blanket—there was a _blanket_—he found bandages wrapped tight from his toes to his ankles on both feet.

If the pain still running through him in waves and shudders was any indication, the bandaging was very necessary.

_What's wrong with me?_ He wondered, half of him expecting an answer. When none appeared forthcoming, Cloud took a deep breath, braced both hands against the bed, and carefully slid his legs over the side. Eyes closed, he fought to hold back the pain, willing it to leave, fade, do anything but continue or intensify. Slowly, his thoughts reordered away from the horrible sensations wracking his slender frame, the agony lessened to a dull, tired ache.

That he could live with.

He kept his eyes closed as he thought back, trying to recall what had happened to result in this condition. He, Sephiroth, Zack, and Liam—the other Regular he bunked with—had been assigned to investigate the reactor in Nibelheim. They moved out immediately after receiving the assignment, going from plane to ship to transport truck, reaching the tiny village in just over a day, and…and what?

Cloud tore at his memory, trying to recall what had happened after they arrived, to no avail. He could feel the recollection just on the edge of his thoughts, taunting and hinting but never revealing a thing, and he ground his teeth in frustration.

His bandaged hand gave a particularly painful throb, sending a jolt of pain up the young man's arm; he turned to look down at the offending appendage, lifting it only once he was certain he could stay sitting upright without its help. He turned it over, examining the palm and the top, searching for some sign of blood on the bandages, some explanation of the injury he'd suffered. There wasn't so much as a hint.

So, Cloud did what he felt was the right thing, and carefully began unwinding the bands.

When the gauze at last pulled away enough to see, Cloud's eyes went wide with shock. Seated into the top of his hand in perfect, lightless black, was a simple, sharp numeral _I_.

"One?" He read aloud, brow creasing. What in Bahamut's name was going on here?

He had seen this before. The familiarity was as painful as the burn itself, although whatever the reason was for the hurt flitted just barely beyond Cloud's memory. The recognition was easy enough to grasp, however, rooted so deeply into his psyche, into his every single day.

Sephiroth had a tattoo like this. Cloud remembered all too clearly the starkness of it against his skin, the way it showed through his hair when he raked his hand over his head first thing in the morning, how Hojo would trace it through his glove ever so gently when Sephiroth grew too defiant.

'_First of my soldiers,'_ the professor's voice echoed through him, memory beginning deep in the back of his head and pushing out through to ricochet behind his eyes. _'The first of the soldiers of the future!'_

He blinked again, trying to grasp where that memory had come from. His imagination could be vivid—as vivid as any boy his age, really—but that…that wasn't a fabrication, wasn't a daydream.

Nothing made sense, and Cloud found himself dizzied by the confusion of it all. Or perhaps that was the result of trying to stand and failing. The second one sounded a little less mentally unhinged, so he clung to that. He was exhausted, in pain and confused, he didn't even know where he was and—

His breath came in gasps and he clung to the edge of the bed, digging his fingers into the hardwood.

He had to calm down. Cloud took a deep breath and closed his eyes, reminding himself that panicking now wouldn't do any good; thinking calmly would be better. He just had to breathe, concentrate on something else, level out.

But what was he supposed to think about? He had no idea what in Bahamut's name was going on, couldn't even remember how the mission to Nibelheim had gone past their arrival, the way Sephiroth's laugh made his stomach flip.

He ground his teeth and concentrated, reaching out for something, anything comforting. Thoughts of home, of his mother or Tifa, of waking up warm and close—

The high song of wind on metal redirected Cloud's attention in spite of the fact that he felt no wind and had noticed no metal in his room, and he turned to find the source. It seemed to resonate all around him, singing up from his feet to the crown of his head, echoing through a hollowness in his chest and leaving him feeling safe and protected, guarded and secure.

Later, he would think that the inundation of the song through his body should have made triangulating the source difficult, but he could tell just as soon as he thought about it exactly where to look. Cloud opened his eyes and leaned over the edge of the bed again, looking down this time. The sight that he found was almost as confusing, and certainly as surprising as everything else that had taken place already on this impossible day.

On the floor, parallel to his bed, there lay a sword. It looked as though it had been dropped over the edge, tassel tangled around the black Wutaian grip in a fashion its wielder would never have allowed, had he been present.

The Masamune sang up at Cloud, and he felt better.

If the Masamune was here, then so was Sephiroth. He couldn't be far, it wasn't at all like him to leave his precious sword unattended—Cloud had seen him cart the thing into the bathroom before, propping it carefully up beside the shower when he washed.

And yet, giving a cursory glance around the room—small, with a floor of woven straw—it was very clear that the General wasn't here. That meant something was terribly wrong.

Bolstered by the singing metal in his head, Cloud pushed himself to his feet at last, maneuvering over the fallen blade, careful to avoid any contact in spite of the way that strange, beautiful whine intensified when he drew closer.

The pain in his joints had finally begun to fade, giving him the opportunity to survey the room with a little more than a cursory look in search of his partner.

It was, as stated previously, small, dimly lit by the heavily curtained window set into the wall opposite the bed, and smelled heavily of salt. Not just salt, of course; also water, the sharp tang of broken palm leaves and the thick, soothing scent of damp earth. Like the coast of Wutai, almost. Something was missing, but Cloud couldn't quite put his finger on it.

"_No gunpowder,"_ that voice in his head whispered. _"No lightning, no blood. Just salt and sand and sea."_

"Guess so," Cloud murmured in automatic response, still looking around.

There was something else, though, something thick and warm and familiar, something _enticing_. It made him want to lay on the floor with his arms outstretched and just breathe—the temptation pulled at his feet and his hands, urging him downward in a low thrum that just barely cut through the calm of sword song.

Without that music saturating him, keeping him calm, Cloud found staying upright was difficult. Three small steps from the bed and he was exhausted, weak at the knees and dizzy. Stars flashed in his vision as he braced a hand against the wall and slowly slid down to the floor.

"M'feeling a lot of discomfort for someone who's dead," he mumbled, taking a deep breath and trying to focus on that hum again, to retake the strength it had endowed him with before.

"_I never said you were dead." _ Now Cloud's brow furrowed, the voice striking a chord in his memory. _"I said that you died."_

Leaning his head back against the wall to breathe, Cloud cleared his throat. "Mm, big distinction." His brow furrowed the moment the words were out. Cloud's voice sounded wrong; deeper, maybe smoother, still with the Nibel accent but different, somehow both alien and familiar.

"_You really don't remember a thing."_

It wasn't a question, and Cloud got the distinct impression that he wasn't expected to answer. He probably couldn't have even if he wanted to; that same silk-and-shadow undertone he'd heard in his own voice rang proud of deep in the one in his head, not foreign at all but _inherent_. The statement was wrong, anyway—Cloud did remember something.

He remembered that _voice_.

"Se—"

He broke off when several things happened all at once in a cacophony of sound.

In the next room, something hit the ground with a crash, a feminine voice cried out in alarm, and a mess of pounding footsteps sounded somewhere outside. Cloud could hear frantic breathing, stifled cries, and something in him tasted the charge of adrenaline. This registered as a threat, and Cloud's reaction came easily, entirely on reflex.

It was very clear, however, that those reflexes certainly weren't his.

The beaded curtain covering the doorway burst open in a tumble of bodies even as Cloud's left hand darted out, pale fingers curling around the black-wrapped grip, and he drew the Masamune with a flourish of grace he didn't understand. The pointed tip arced perfectly through the air, stopping mere inches from the skin of his intruder.

The metal brushed against the heavy cream-colored fabric of a little girl's tunic, and the woman who had entered the room a half-step behind her cried out, threw both arms around the little one and pulled her away with a frantic expression, wide hazel eyes flickering from the sword to Cloud and back again. Her skin went pale beneath a spray of freckles, and both she and the undersized black-haired figure in her arms went entirely rigid.

Cloud's eyes, just as wide, barely took in the girls at all.

The sword in his hand seemed to weigh even less than the rifle he'd been issued at his deployment to Nibelheim, and it sang in his hand, a thrum of contentment and warmth curling up through his arm to settle once more in that hole deep in his chest, lighting the dark corners with a sense of completion and protection he'd never felt in his life.

Laying in Sephiroth's arms late at night, knowing that there was nowhere else he'd rather be, wasn't half as _safe_ as this. The steady beat of Sephiroth's heart was nothing compared to the song echoing through his skeleton, reverberating through every cell in his body, whispering _yours yours yours_.

He had drawn the Masamune. He was wielding the Masamune.

The world careened back into focus, and Cloud dropped the sword like it was on fire.


	3. Song of Screaming Metal

**Author's Note: **This is one of those chapters I've been really looking forward to rewriting. Last time it was far too engrossed in things that never came back into play; this time, I think I managed to 1.) Avoid that for the most part, and 2.) Introduce a semi-important plot element significantly earlier than it was introduced in the original. Also, please note the use of the term "junction" for equipping materia. This is FFVIII terminology and I'm well aware of that, but I'm going to stick with it because it rings significantly better than "equip" or "allocate." Later, I will also be using the spell progression style of Fire: Fira: Firaga rather than Fire: Fire2: Fire3, for the same reason.

* * *

**III: Song of Screaming Metal**

**

* * *

**

The little girl's name was Vie. Her sister's was Amaere, commonly shortened to Mae. They were in a town called Mideel, which Cloud vaguely recognized from some research back at the academy as being the southernmost settlement in the world, but had no knowledge of beyond that fleeting bit of trivia. There was no reactor here, no Shinra influence, simply because it seemed there was nothing here worth influencing.

Cloud learned, over a mug of hot tea served some time after his initial shaky introduction to those that had taken him in, that he had been discovered washed up on shore just over a week ago.

"You were in a bad way," Mae said simply, settling into a chair brought in from another room with her own drink held in tanned, delicate hands. Her eyes cast from Cloud to the Masamune, propped up on the wall at the head of the bed, then back down to her tea. Her voice was level, professional and calm, but it was clear she was still very on-edge. "Pretty roughed up from the waves, bleeding in places with your lungs full of water, but you had a good heartbeat, so we took you home. Healer's been in to see you every day, didn't see you waking up for a while…"

Cloud just nodded, listening and trying to piece things together. He remembered reaching Nibelheim. Remembered setting his feet back on those cobbled stones after two years away. There had been no accident in transit from Midgar to his hometown, he couldn't have crashed and wound up drifting in the ocean.

Even if he had, there was no way he would have survived anyway. Zack and Sephiroth, perhaps—although even that was a stretch—but Cloud? No. He was special in his own right, but not nearly special enough to make it through that sort of ordeal.

But then, apparently he hadn't made it through. If that voice in his head was right, he hadn't survived whatever it was that brought him here.

And yet here he was.

"Mister Strife?"

He jerked, blinking from his reverie, and looked back up at Mae; that tone quite clearly said that she'd been speaking to him for some time without a response, so he arched his eyebrows and waited for her to repeat herself. Mae gave him a smile that was equal parts uncomfortable and sympathetic. "I just asked how you're feeling."

"Oh. Oh, I'm—" He lowered his eyes again. "I'm…all right. Pretty tired."

"Any pain?"

He started to shake his head, automatic response of a sixteen-year-old boy, cultured from years of being forced to do exactly the opposite of what he wanted to do if he admitted to suffering _any_ kind of discomfort, but broke it off with a weak chuckle and nodded instead. "Mostly my head. Chest, a little. I feel really weak." He crossed his hands in his lap, right over left, fingers playing at the black numeral burned into his skin.

Amaere just nodded.

A moment passed in tense silence before Cloud spoke again. "Uh…I'm…sorry. About earlier." He winced slightly, pulling back into himself. "Again."

Mae shook her head. "Reflexes," she said simply. "I shouldn't have let Vie burst in on you to begin with." She left something unsaid, but Cloud couldn't tell if it was in regards to their bursting in on him and scaring him half out of his mind, or him pulling a sword on them and scaring them both more than half out of their minds.

"I thought someone was being attacked or something," Cloud explained.

"In a manner of speaking." When Cloud arched an eyebrow, Mae shook her head again. "Vie is grounded for a month for breaking my favorite shell pot."

…Well, that wasn't anticlimactic or anything. Cloud frowned and tried not to look too put out by the fact that he'd turned his entire universe upside-down because a little girl made a mess in another room and her guardian was forced to chase her down to deliver recompense. Cloud heaved a sigh and held a hand to his head with a low groan.

"Gaea, I'm sorry. That's—I'm sorry."

"We shouldn't have come rushing in on you like that," Mae stated. "It was our own fault." And again she gave him a half-curious, half-knowing look, words left unsaid.

He was seriously getting tired of this. "You said before that the healer didn't think I'd be awake for a while." The change of subject might have been a bit abrupt, but he was sick of that look. Mae sipped her tea and nodded. "Why?"

"I told you," she explained, "you were in a bad way."

Cloud took a drink of his own tea, well aware that there was more to the story than that.

"But we should have guessed you'd be a bit jumpy when you woke up. Training's a hard thing to break, after all, especially for SOLDIER."

Cloud blinked, at last looking just as confused as he felt. "What?" How did they get from talking about a stupid mistake—_impossible mistake, _part of him whispered, _because you can't use the sword how did you use the sword it felt so good just pick it up again for a second __**please**_—and him being sick to talking about SOLDIER training?

"You don't give me enough credit," she said gently. "I did help strip you down; the Yggdrasil emblem on your belt gave it away." She lowered her gaze again, blowing softly on her tea to cool it down. "Your eyes made me wonder, too."

"My…" Cloud reached up and touched his face, around his eye, ran a finger down his eyelid as though the contact would explain what she meant. Then he looked at her again, expression still utterly bewildered. "I don't understand."

Now it was Mae's turn to blink. "Mako eyes, Mister Strife."

Professor Hojo's voice came to him again in memory, this time layered by the velvet tone that he knew so well, as though the voice in his head was quoting in time, meeting the very memory that Cloud could not possibly possess. '_As much a work of art as your mother; mako eyes since the day you were born.' _Then the voice stopped, but Hojo continued._ 'How anyone could believe you're th—'_

The memory broke off abruptly, a great wall of pain slamming down on the memory in an instant. He grit his teeth around a grunt, more of surprise than anything else, and just as quickly the pain faded out.

"_Not meant for you, Cloud. Not your memory."_ A deep chuckle reverberated through his head. _"Maybe I'll let you see it later."_

Cloud shook his head before Mae could ask about his behavior, doing all he could to ignore the noise between his ears and focus on the girl in front of him. "Yggdrasil is only engraved on SOLDIER accessories."

"And mako eyes are only on SOLDIERs," she countered, taking another drink of her tea, not meeting his eyes. "It's not hard to work out, Mister Strife."

"I'm not in SOLDIER."

"_Oh, aren't you?"_

Cloud replied automatically, voice a sharp burst of frustration and confusion, tinted with pain. "No!" Mae looked at him then, confused at the outburst, and Cloud realized too late that the query hadn't come from her, but once again from somewhere inside him, lurking in the marrow of his bones and laughing through his veins at the mistake.

Heaving a sigh and lowering his eyes with a pained expression, he shook his head. Now his voice was low, as though he didn't want to admit his fault, didn't want to own up to reality. He fisted his hands in the blanket draped over him. "I never made it to SOLDIER. Didn't even make it to the exam before—"

Again that wall of rejection slammed down inside him, that instant of pain flashed through his head. He just shook his head again.

Mae looked almost sympathetic. "Hey, don't worry about it." Her tone of voice made it quite clear that she didn't believe him, but was philanthropic enough to at least play along. Cloud was grateful for that much. "You're really tense—think you could use chance to relax a little, stop worrying?"

Cloud blinked.

She smiled at him, leaning in slightly. "Feeling up to a bath?"

* * *

Twenty minutes later found Cloud with the cuffs of his borrowed pants rolled up and his legs hung over the edge of the communal bath used here in Mideel. The temperature of the water hovered just between warm and hot, and Cloud was impressed with the owner's ability to tap into the weak shards of immature fire materia imbedded in the stone around the pool.

The water felt good on his legs, soothing away the aches and pain still lingering from whatever ordeal had brought him here, and Amaere was correct in her referring to this as a chance to relax. The faint haze of steam kept his mind just the slightest bit distracted and the warmth in the very air kept his body relaxed and comfortable. He could fall asleep in here, he was sure.

He had already been sleeping for quite a while, though, if what his hostess said was true. His brow furrowed slightly in thought, the distraction wearing away as he reached up to gingerly touch the area around his left eye, recalling what else Mae had said about him. The moment of contemplation was partially interrupted when the heavy curtain in the doorway rustled to herald the arrival of the bathhouse owner, and Cloud lowered his hand once he knew the man was close.

"Eyes hurt?" Jarom asked, carefully separating a bundle of black into individual garments and laying them one by one over a bench braced against the nearest wall.

Cloud shook his head. "No, just…thinking, I guess."

Jarom set a familiar mess of belts and metal on the edge of the bench, and Cloud tried not to think on it too hard as the man came over and crouched down beside him. He had the same hazel eyes as Amaere and Vie, the same black hair, albeit streaked with white and grey, but even beyond that obvious resemblance he struck something in Cloud's memory that stood just out of reach.

He knew this man's face, somehow.

Jarom smiled. "You're a miracle, you know that?"

"_You have no idea."_

Cloud tried to ignore the comment from the s idelines in his head. He didn't feel lucky, that was for sure. If anything, he felt insane. "How do you figure?" he breathed, eyes downcast, watching the way the water rippled around his legs.

"Told Mae you weren't in SOLDIER." Cloud nodded in response, confused once again. People here needed to learn to make sense. Or maybe he needed to learn how to understand them. "But you've got the eyes."

Now Cloud looked away, eyeing the junction where the floor met the wall, looking past it and through it, listening to the low whispers of materia shards in the stone, some part of him seeking out their pale glow to avoid Jarom's gaze. The man only smiled and gave him a gentle pat on the back.

"Did Mae tell you how we found you?"

"Washed up on shore with my lungs full of water," he reiterated flatly. It was hardly an interesting story.

"Is that all she said?" Jarom sighed and shook his head. "You've got to forgive my niece, she can be a bit…superstitious. Especially about stuff like this."

Slowly, Cloud turned to look back at him, brow furrowed once again. "Stuff like what?"

Jarom settled in to sit next to him, cross-legged on the stone, and told quite a different story. It had all the same elements as Mae's, but in spite of that it still managed to carve a harsh disparity between the two.

In this account, Cloud washed up on shore, lungs full of water, in the middle of a mako boil just off the coast. Mideel, it turned out, was placed directly over a massive mako well, energy so close to the surface that irrigation could be dangerous. At a questioning look from Cloud, Jarom added an explanation that Shinra had been out to do some prospecting several years ago, intending to plant a reactor and draw off the energy lurking just below the sand and stone, but even they labeled the area too unstable and gave up before too long.

Every so often the liquid power would build up too much pressure and release, most commonly through a series of underwater geysers a quartermile or so from the beach. Cloud was found during one such pressure release, a boil powerful enough to make the ocean glow, turn seaspray to stars and flavor the air with the metallic tang of the world's purest form of energy.

Cloud had been burning from the inside when they found him, bleeding at the joints with sparks dancing over his skin, writhing and screaming, eyes so frenzied from pain that any soul behind them was reduced to white noise.

"Took nearly an hour before anyone could've touched you, and another ten minutes or so before you stopped thrashing enough to make it possible." Jarom breathed out a shaky sigh. "Never seen anyone survive mako poisoning that bad, but you…"

Cloud held his breath as Jarom looked at him, squinting slightly as though trying to look through him, trying to understand something beyond his ability to see.

"You just stopped."

Half-buried in the sand, Cloud had gone completely limp, breath heaving as he stared unseeing at the stars. Vie was the one to approach him first, much to her elder sister's dismay, but it was the village healer who took his pulse and vitals, and declared him stable enough to move.

"I carried you to the nearest, safest place I could—you were mumbling under your breath the whole time." He tilted his head slightly. "Remember any of it?"

Cloud shook his head.

Jarom pulled a face and averted his eyes. "Just kind of…whimpered, I guess. Said a couple things."

"What did I say?"

The older man swallowed, and his voice trembled a little when he spoke. "'Mother, it hurts.'"

Cloud winced.

"'_It hurts' didn't even come close."_

"Apologized a lot. Said a couple things about Shinra, too. SOLDIER."

"I was never in SOLDIER," Cloud said plainly. "I didn't even take the exam—I told Mae that before."

Jarom held up both hands. "Hey, I believe you. People can get mako eyes from high level poisoning." Left unsaid was the addendum that they didn't live long enough to use them, of course, and Cloud was grateful for that.

He knew something was wrong with him. Even without voices in his head, he would have known. Before now he'd never felt materia before, never sensed its presence; Zack could, Sephiroth could, and they'd told him about it more than once. It made fighting in Wutai much easier, because the mako in them would sing for the materia in their enemies' equipment, tell them where they were.

If Zack's stories were to be believed, Sephiroth could even sing back, call the materia to him and destroy bangles and bracers in the process. Summon it to his hand in a flurry of light and energy. Sephiroth had never admitted there was any truth in most of Zack's insane war stories, but that was one of the few more improbable ones that he never denied either.

Initially, the idea of it scared Cloud a little, ate away at his resolve to join SOLDIER. He'd been afraid to hear voices whenever he junctioned some pretty piece of prehistoric stone to the silver band on his wrist, afraid of the "music" Zack always talked about hearing in the battlefield.

Now it didn't matter.

"But you are military." It wasn't a question, and Cloud wondered how much of it showed in his mannerisms. "Old enough to be in SOLDIER, too—just not interested?"

He shook his head again. "I haven't had a chance to take the exam yet. I was on the board to, after—"

Heat flared in his head, a spike of pain in time with a sudden barrier, that cap on his memories coming down on him again, but this time a hiss pushed through the ache, a whisper of explanation rode the vibrations of the wall slamming into place. This time it wasn't that deep tone in his head or a memory that didn't belong to him.

This time it came out in his own voice, low and shaking and afraid, whispered aloud just over the sound of a breath.

"Nibelheim."

Tasting the word on his tongue, hearing it with his ears instead of his mind, was all it took. Something in him snapped, something in him screamed; his eyes went wide and his breath caught in his throat and he _remembered_. Mako burning around him and pulling him down, metal in his chest and energy in his mouth and his skin howling in pain—

It played out in reverse, memories running backward as though being filed in descending order.

'_My home, my mom, everything—give it back!'_

Green eyes and long hair, silver turned scarlet in blood, burning and screaming and _how could you do this to me_ and _I loved you how could you_.

'_Why did you kill the villagers?!'_

Violet eyes and black hair and white, white teeth, screaming and begging and taken aback and he was gone too fast, thrown aside too easily, metal caved in around him, curled around him and held him tight and _god please no let him live let him go_.

'_I'm one of the last true heirs to this planet.'_

Mother, no father, books and leather and parchment and lies, whispers and secrets held too long, uncertainty and _I am special_.

'…_Jenova?'_

Her name, like a song, emblazoned in metal and thrumming like a heartbeat deep in the reactor, whispering and hissing in the back of his head since he was born and _come to me come for me save me_.

'_Was I created this way too?'_

Reality crashed down and his voice broke, pupils turned to slits in frenzied eyes, disbelieving, pleading _no no no not like this_.

'_My mother's name was Jenova.'_

Dead when he was born, just a name driven into memory, no eyes or voice or touch of skin in the deepest place inside him, no certainty or comfort just whispers of _your mother your mother no one else's_.

'_What's it like to be back in your hometown?'_

Never really a home, nothing for him but smog and leeching death and burning light all around him and he didn't understand, he couldn't understand, and he was sad and scared and wanted to touch him and whisper _it's_ _all right it's all right I'm here I'll be your home_.

Cloud's back arched, he threw his head back and he _screamed_ at the top of his lungs, voice agonized and frantic, eyes frenzied and burning, before falling backward to crack his head against the magic-warmed stone.

* * *

It was dark. This darkness didn't coil and twist around him, didn't smother him, but a part of him warned that it could. He felt as if he was holding his breath, somehow, a tension and lightheadedness pulling at his insides, begging for him to let go.

"We're both…alive?" He whispered.

"We are," Sephiroth replied, looking down at him. His eyes burned like white hot fire set behind emeralds, pupils tightened just enough to be clearly oblong, not the perfect circles they should have been. Not the pinpricks Cloud could feel his own narrow into as he stared up at that burning light.

His voice came out once again in a breath. "We survived?"

Sephiroth's expression deepened, the corners of his mouth tugging slightly downward, and he offered one gloved hand. Cloud took it without hesitation, and the General hoisted him to his feet effortlessly. "Do you know where we are?"

Cloud blinked at that; Sephiroth wasn't normally the type to answer questions with questions. But…well, fact of the matter was that Cloud didn't know where they were. He answered with a shake of his head, not looking away from Sephiroth. There was something in his eyes, some lingering frantic edge that frightened the Shinra Regular, kept him on edge in ways Sephiroth hadn't since before Cloud entered the military.

The General dropped his voice to a hiss, using his hold on Cloud's hand to pull him in close, ducking in close enough for his eyes to burn at his companion's skin. "We're _inside_. Don't you see?" He tilted his head, mouth almost brushing Cloud's face—but Cloud couldn't feel his breath, and that scared him as much as Sephiroth's mad eyes. "We're inside you, and me, deep and _alone_."

"Seph, I don't—"

"Understand?" He interjected, straightening suddenly, but not pulling away. Something pushed Cloud back a little, but it wasn't the familiar pressure of Sephiroth's skin or the texture of his heavy leather jacket. It felt almost as though some sort of buffer stood between them—even the contact at their hands felt somehow distant, muffled as though through something cool and thick, just barely springy.

"Of course you don't understand!" Sephiroth cried, throwing back his head to laugh loud and long into the dark. "Of _course_ you don't _understand_!"

Cloud pulled back slightly, still not releasing his own hold on Sephiroth's hand, and looked up at him. "Sephiroth, you're scaring me."

The laughter trailed off, and Sephiroth slowly tilted his head back downward. His hair fell over his face, obscuring one eye—but it glowed bright enough to show through the heavy locks, reflecting burning green over and over off every silver strand. He smiled, only it wasn't a smile so much as pale lips curling back away from perfect white teeth, a grimace caught halfway or a sadistic snarl frozen in place, silent.

"And so I should be," he murmured, eyes half-lidded, eyebrows arched. "You don't know where we are, but you remember what happened."

Cloud swallowed thickly, tensing in spite of himself.

Sephiroth closed his head and whispered, in perfect time with Cloud's memory, _"Don't push your luck."_ The remembered gurgle in his voice echoed around them from the thought, the tang of machinery and mako flaring for them both as the memory sharpened from two different sides.

"What happened to us?" Cloud asked, unable to keep the tremor from his voice as he finally let go of Sephiroth's hand.

His expression softened somewhat, smile actually looking for a moment like a smile, and he inclined his head once more to respond, clearly amused, "We died, Cloud. We died."

"But we're not dead." He didn't have to ask—Cloud knew they weren't dead. "We're…inside. You and I, we're both…" He squinted, and suddenly the pieces fell into place.

Sephiroth was behind him now, and one long arm looped around his waist as he ducked down, one cheek pressing against the side of his head, pushing against the buffer that somehow kept them apart no matter how close they stood. "Under your skin," Sephiroth purred. "And under mine. Together."

Cloud's eyes, now a shade of blue bright enough to rival Sephiroth's green, were wide. "The voices in my head—"

"Voices in _my_ head."

"—and the burning under my skin—"

"Burning under _my_ skin."

"—and the eyes—"

"_My_ eyes."

Cloud jerked and turned to look back at him. "It's one body. We're in one body. And this—this is inside us." His face fell, brow creasing and fearful confusion lighting in his inhumanly bright eyes. "Why?"

Sephiroth ran one hand up Cloud's chest, moving down to whisper in his ear. "To keep me restrained. Stop me." He pressed his mouth to the shell of flesh, and Cloud found he could only barely feel it. The words, though, pushed deep into him, vibrating in a rumble that settled deep in his chest. "I love you—_stop me_."

And then in a song of screaming metal, the Masamune burst out in a bloody streak through the front of Cloud's chest.

He choked, shaking hands coming up to touch at the blade, slick with his blood. It fell—_drip-drip-drip_—toward his boots, almost glowing red against the black below. Cloud struggled to form words, to say something, anything, to make sense of this utter madness, but all that came out was a strangled whimper of pain and disbelief.

"Keep me restrained," Sephiroth hissed. He withdrew the blade, releasing Cloud to fall in a heap at his feet.

* * *

_Stop me._

Green eyes snapped open, pupils tightening into hair's-breadth slits, and Sephiroth took a breath. The fracture on the back of his skull sealed instantly, and the aging man that had only just turned to face him started in surprise, surging to kneel over him.

"Hey, are you—"

Sephiroth raised one bandaged arm, put it to the man's chest, and—still laying on the ground—flung him away like he was made of paper. Sephiroth sat up and took measure of his surroundings as the man slammed hard into the far wall and crumpled to the floor.

First things first; those were his leathers slung over that bench over there, he needed to get dressed. He rose to his feet and padded over, stripping off bloodied bandages to reveal flawless, milky white skin beneath, concealed again all too quickly by black leather and metal. He buckled his belt, slipped into his jacket and strapped his shoulderguards into place with trained efficiency and ease, seeming to relax somewhat once he was properly dressed.

He held out one hand, and the Masamune was instantly there. Long pale fingers curled around the black lacquered scabbard, resonance of the blade meeting with the low song already humming deep within him, harmonizing instantly.

"**Oh, you are a wonder."**

The voice was deep and feminine, lurking somewhere deep within him. Like a drug, the sound bolstered his confidence, and even the suddenness of it didn't make Sephiroth so much as bat an eye.

He smoothed down his jacket in one almost reflexive motion, reached up to bat away long hair—which wasn't there. That was strange. His brow creased slightly, confusion clouding his immature features, and he moved across the room—more like a cave, really, with straw mats and thatching set against the walls as some weak form of insulation or padding—to where a highly polished length of reflective metal was propped, the closest this place could get to a proper mirror.

"**Not the most efficient of changes, but…appropriate."**

Sephiroth could only agree; he wasn't unaccustomed to sudden physical changes, was hardly unused to waking up a different person than he'd fallen asleep as. The sudden changes had long since stopped, ending around the time his body finally matured, but the memory of growing inches overnight and watching his features mature as he looked in a mirror were still fresh enough that this was hardly a surprised. And yet, there was something about this body he was in that ached, something that stung behind his eyes.

The body itself was smaller than he was accustomed to, shorter by several inches, lithe where he had always been sturdier, thicker in musculature. There was still a fair level of his previous definition, but in this body it looked almost immature, as though he still had growing left to do.

It showed in his face as well; wide eyes, sculpted features softened down into something slightly rounder, younger, not entirely different from his own but nowhere near identical. The thick spikes of silver-white hair were familiar both in style and color, albeit from two different sources.

It wasn't Cloud's face looking back at him, but neither was it Sephiroth's. Too old for the former and too young for the latter, too long for the former and too soft for the latter. If some cosmic joke made it possible for Cloud Strife and Sephiroth to have a child, he would probably grow up to look something like this body did.

Appropriate indeed.

"**My beautiful son."**

He smiled and lowered his eyes almost demurely. "Mother."

"**Burn it down."**

Sephiroth's smile turned predatory, teeth bared in a silent snarl, and he turned on his heel to look back across the heated stone all around him. These songs were tiny and broken, incomplete, but there were more than enough for his purposes.

The General held out both arms, closed his eyes, tilted his head back and called the materia to him.


	4. Hold Back the Lightning

**Author's Note: **Holy screaming plot dump, Batman. This chapter is latelatelate because 1.) Real Life has been kicking my butt a bit, and 2.) I had to cut it early to keep from letting it turn into a 30-page overwhelming monster. So...those of you who remember getting out of Mideel and off into other things by the end of Chapter Four in the original? Sorry, still there. We'll get out next week. Hopefully. Also please note that a violence warning is especially necessary for this chapter, and the one to follow.

* * *

**IV: Hold Back the Lightning**

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* * *

**

Mideel was like a village at war.

Vie was only eleven, and small for her age, but determined to help in whatever way she could. She and those few other young children in the village ran buckets back and forth for the water line until they'd done all they could for those houses closest to the sea. After that she helped her sister shovel dirt onto the smaller fires, smothering them where they could, throwing wet sheets and curtains over others to drown them, stamping out patches with boots too big for her feet.

All anyone knew, at first, was that the fire started in Jarom's bathhouse. Some claimed that it wasn't a surprise—all those materia shards were too much for one man to tend, they said, it had only been a matter of time before things went out of control and ruined them all.

Then they saw him.

Eyes burning green and sword drawn, the young man they'd known as Cloud Strife carved a swath of destruction through the village as wide as his oversized blade would allow. Vie saw him as she raced to help, always out the corner of her eye in a flash of silver turned gold in the firelight, always just beyond the edge of her comprehension. It seemed whenever she turned to see, heart pounding in her chest, he was gone.

He was closer each time, closer and closer every single time she flitted past, and it made her choke and sob and shake. He was toying with her, the way a cat trailed after a bird with clipped wings, watching it hop around in futility before finally deciding it was time to pounce.

Cloud pounced when Vie went to get another set of sheets from her house.

He was on her so quickly she didn't know what had happened at first—simply that she was on her back, looking up at the sky, and she was hot and there was smoke and she saw stars.

Blinking away the dizziness from being thrown off her feet, she realized that they weren't stars at all. They glowed and flickered, sparkled brighter than the firelight, all shades of green and pale aquamarine in the shape of broken circles and crescents and half-moons.

The materia fragments from Jarom's bathhouse.

The young man they'd pulled from the water, filled to the brim with mako and thrashing in pain, had pulled the shards up from the stone and junctioned them through the pitch black of his jacket. Directly into his skin.

"Wh-What—" She choked, trying with all her might not to sob. "What are you?" Cloud Strife smirked then, a shard imbedded under his eye pulling up slightly, but said nothing. Vie stared up at him and saw that his pupils were tightened to slits amid the green, like a cat after all.

…Wait a minute, _green_?

"Your eyes," she rasped. "Your eyes—your eyes were blue." Cloud tilted his head slightly, curious, and the little girl saw a chance. "Y-Your eyes were blue and they weren't—they weren't slitted like that and they—you were scared of hurting me, you were _sorry_ to scare me and—gods, _why are you doing this_?"

His gaze turned distant, as though he were looking through her, through the earth beneath her, deep down into the planet, and his brow furrowed. He perked slightly, turning his head just enough to make it look like he was listening to something—even though there was nothing but the crackle of fire and the cries of alarm that had overrun Mideel since he came out of the bathhouse in a whirling fury of metal and power—then he shook his head.

"Please," Vie said, pushing herself up on her elbows even as the SOLDIER lifted his sword and rebalanced it in one gloved hand. "Please stop!" He lifted it over his head, eyes focusing on her once more, sharp and attentive, taking in her every motion. She clenched her eyes shut and tensed for the blow she knew was coming, listened to the blade slice through the burning air as it arced downward. "Somebody make him stop!"

The blade froze an inch above her black-haired head and held position, perfectly still. A second passed. Two. Vie opened her eyes and looked up at the crazed young warrior looming over her.

"He can't hear you," he said softly, almost gently, and his voice was wrong. Deep and smooth as it had been, but more…settled. Comfortable. He spoke like an adult, someone who knew his voice and the person it attached to, not the half-grown uncertainty she'd heard in him before.

Vie was only eleven years old, and small for her age, but she noticed things. She could see things, hear things. And she could tell that this voice was not Cloud Strife's any more than those cat-slit green eyes.

"He can't hear you," the young man repeated. "He can't stop me." His eyes narrowed slightly, brow creasing. "He can't keep me restrained."

Vie inched back away from him as he looked away, eyes averted in thought.

"…He's dead."

* * *

He knew it already. Cloud was dead. And yet for some reason saying it aloud struck Sephiroth like a kick to the chest, made his heartbeat turn erratic, pitched up the singing in his head so high he could barely hear it anymore. Cloud was dead, because Sephiroth had killed him. The Masamune whined at the taste of his blood, twisted and shivered in his hand, willing him to stop.

That was blood the blade had never wanted to taste, and now tasted so much more than it should have.

_Killed him loved him stop me stop me why won't you stop me mother why won't he stop me wake him up give him back mine mine mine._

"**Calm, Sephiroth."**

"He's dead," he repeated. "He's dead, Mother."

She purred in his head, crooned and cajoled until his heartbeat went steady again. "He would have faded someday. Disappeared or died or drifted away from you. Same as all the others."

"He was different."

"**How?"**

Sephiroth opened his mouth to respond, and couldn't bring himself to say the word. A hoarse half-grunt came out, but broke off just as quickly. He was left with his mouth open, burning eyes narrowed, face a mask of pain.

"**You can't tell me?"**

He ground his teeth and shook his head weakly, lowering the Masamune, tip angled toward the ground.

"**He was one of them, my child. A usurper, a thief of life, ruler to a world that was never his at all."**

Sephiroth's voice was low. "He was different."

"**Not different enough."**

Her voice rang with such conviction, such certainty and understanding—laced with some mad form of maternal compassion—Sephiroth couldn't help but believe. She was right, she'd always been right. She was Jenova, his beautiful, wonderful mother, who sang him to sleep from her glass prison, who coaxed strength and brilliance from him when all the others curled in on themselves and fell, down and down until there was nothing left but a crumpled husk.

A memory of others flickered in his mind, black hair and red hair and feathers that burned and fell apart, but the vision faded all too quickly, just as the children in it had.

They couldn't last. She never sang to them, so they fell apart while he only grew stronger. As a child he hadn't been able to grasp it, couldn't comprehend the intricacies of this connection, but now he understood.

He survived, alone, because he was the strongest. Because Mother loved him more than anyone else, wanted him to shine brighter than all the rest. She'd let the others die to make his life all the greater, refused to stretch her spirit out over any mind but his.

Because she loved him.

Something echoed inside him, _no no no don't believe her please stop breathe listen don't believe—_

It broke off with a spike of music, replaced once again by the all-possessing adoration of his mother. She loved him more than anyone had ever loved him.

No number of Clouds or Zacks could make him feel the way Jenova did with such ease, could let him see that this was how things were meant to be. They couldn't whisper in his head and sing him to sleep abd run those cold, sharp fingers up his spine to give him chills and urge him forward.

It was because their hands were warm, something in him whispered. Because they didn't force him into anything, didn't make him feel like anything more than just a man, just a person, not a doll built in a lab or a god among men. They didn't sing him to sleep because they didn't have to, the whisper of skin on skin had always been more than enough, the low murmur of breath as they drifted off had been music enough, hadn't it?

But they hadn't been the ones that pushed him through Wutai, through the blood and gore and death of that horrible place. They hadn't taught him to call the Ancients' memories to him and borrow their power with his very flesh where everyone else needed metal.

Because they were different.

"Not different enough," he echoed, quiet.

Because now they were dead.

Jenova was his mother. Surely she knew what was best for him, what he needed. Surely she understood what he was better than anyone; he was her living legacy, the consummation of her life on this planet.

Sephiroth lifted the Masamune again, fixed his gaze on the little girl attempting to scramble away from him, and swung downward.

* * *

He ran, tight grip around his wrist dragging him onward when he stumbled over his own feet, unable to keep the pace. Her hand was strong, too strong, and all but pulled him through the air when he lost his footing, carting him along behind her in a blur of blue and gold.

She was absolutely beautiful. Glowing whiteness and a haze of green, blue and violet and even scarlet blossoming amid the glow as she moved,

**Keep your feet, child.**

Her voice echoed all around him, and she didn't turn to give him so much as a glance.

**We haven't much time.**

Cloud set his jaw and twisted, putting his feet beneath him once more to hit the pitch black surface below at a dead run. The rhythm of his pounding feet resonated through him, up through his legs and into his chest, settling to keep time with his heartbeat, eerily slow.

**I have given you power, the best way I can.**

The sight of Sephiroth standing in the heart of Nibelheim, flames writhing all around him, flashed in Cloud's vision.

**I have allowed you understanding, in spite of your heart's protest.**

The memory of Sephiroth helping him up while they stood together in the dark recesses of their shared mind flickered in front of him.

**It is not enough, as I feared.**

The Masamune, protruding from his chest, and Sephiroth whispering _Stop me._

**Thus…**

They slowed, the black fading to white as a scene came into focus. The grip on his wrist felt looser, lighter, until he couldn't feel it at all.

**Knowledge I'll give you, to know how you must hold her back.**

Cloud saw Hojo, then, and a flash of an older man with tousled black hair and narrow-rimmed glasses, both of them dressed in heavy coats with snow coursing around them. Hojo smiled, and the openness of it almost made Cloud lose his footing again. The background was pure white now, frozen and tinted blue, and Cloud realized an instant too late that his companion's figure had faded into the white and disappeared.

**To know why you must hold her back.**

"_A work of art,"_ Hojo breathed, and his voice was _young_. He turned and looked at Cloud, past Cloud, black eyes bright beneath his thick spectacles, pale skin smooth and flushed from the cold. _"What are you going to call her?"_

The other man looked as well, tilting his head back slightly to follow some unseen line, survey some unseen sight, and he put his hands on his hips and spoke not with reverence, but with satisfied interest. The way a man spoke of his own handiwork, some great achievement of his own making. _"Jenova."_

Cloud blinked. "…I know this already," he murmured. "The remains of an Ancient codenamed Jenova was found in the north." He turned to look around, behind him into the blackness. "I know this already."

"_The one you mistook for a Cetra…"_

He jerked and whirled, finding snow replaced with the warm glow of a fire, the outside sky of white replaced with wood walls and metal panels, computers and screens everywhere. The man who named Jenova sat toward the middle of the room, opposite a young woman with thick auburn hair and bright green eyes.

Cloud knew her face somehow, felt as though he'd seen her before.

"…_the one you call Jenova," _she continued, expression level and serious, bright eyes shadowed by the severity of her words. _"That's the Calamity."_

Blue eyes narrowed as what the specter of a woman said sunk in. "The one you _mistook_ for a Cetra?"

The Cetra were the Ancients, first rulers of the planet, children of Gaea. Heirs to the world, as Sephiroth had so madly claimed in Nibelheim, usurped by humankind. If Jenova's Cetrahood was a mistake, some sort of folly on the part of the scientists that found her, then that made Sephiroth no more heir to the planet than Zack.

**In the Lifestream, he knew what she was.**

The scene before him flickered.

**But she will not allow him to understand.**

"_It looked like our—our dead mothers, our dead brothers…"_ The woman's voice was pained, her head held low, but she slowly gained momentum as she continued, tone still pained but turning frantic. _"Showing us specters of our past, everything we wanted and more, and we believed—we believed—"_ She broke off with a sob, burying her face in her hands.

The sudden wave of comprehension was enough to send Cloud reeling, breath short and heart pounding in his chest. "It was Jenova. She killed the Cetra."

For a long moment, there came no response.

**She fell. Hurt me. Buried herself, tried to rip me apart from within. Tore my children to pieces and rebuilt them as her own. I made weapons—**

A vision of glistening scales and leathery wings, burning eyes and sharp teeth, flashed before Cloud's eyes.

—**but it was too late. My children sealed her away. Her lightning struck the earth, crackled and screamed, and faded.**

"Until Sephiroth was born," Cloud completed. Jenova had all but destroyed Gaea's people, but in return they had bound her, buried her in the same soil she'd fought so hard to ruin. Then Shinra found her, through her they created Sephiroth, and through him she woke back up to the world she wanted so badly to kill. The General had never been completely stable, always had that edge of frenzy lurking in his gaze, but it never broke him until Nibelheim, when he found the monster that gave him, if not life, his power.

Sephiroth was the key. Without him, she was nothing. If he'd never come to Nibelheim, she never would have been able to take him, never dug her claws so deep into his psyche, never shattered him so completely as to kill the people he cared about most in the world.

"I understand," Cloud breathed, below a whisper.

In response, a sharp spike of pain flared in his head, so powerful and so sudden that he couldn't even dream of biting back the replying cry of pain. It spread through him, from his head down to his chest, heart full to bursting in all the wrong ways, pounding harder and harder with no pretense of rhythm.

**Keep him restrained, little one.**

The pounding of his screaming heart vibrated through him, forcing him to shiver in time.

**Hold back the lightning.**

* * *

Cloud awoke to a world on fire. Once again he hurt, a headache pounded behind his eyes and all the skin on his body felt burned, but that came second to the image affronting him. He could see no buildings, no distinguishing landmarks, nothing to show where he was but flames all around him—and yet, deep in his heart he knew. This was Nibelheim.

This was hell.

He pushed himself up, fighting the urge to scream when his uniform rubbed at his skin, strong blue fabric assaulting the invisible burns all over his body. The black armor plating on his shoulders dug in like teeth, biting at his arms, and his shirtcollar scraped around his neck like a garrote. It hurt so much he froze in place, teeth clenched and breath heaving, and fought to keep perfectly still. The less he moved, the less it hurt. The less it hurt, the more he could think.

But in thinking, he knew that he had to move. He was here for something—beyond the tarnished memories of a voice that reminded him of his mother, past the disjointed images that he knew he needed to move forward, he had a lingering feeling, a cold certainty in his chest.

Cloud pushed himself to his feet. This, something in him said, was what a Mako treatment felt like. This was what SOLDIERs went through once a year at the least, what Sephiroth went through every couple months. This is what he'd wanted so badly to feel; now that he had it, what would he do with it?

"Hold back the lightning," he whispered, barely above a breath.

He stumbled forward, glowing blue eyes narrowed against the flame, until at last a figure came into view, at first a silhouette of black against the flames but steadily clearer as he drew near.

A part of him, he realized, had been expecting Sephiroth. That same part of him was relieved beyond his ability to describe when the shape, though silver haired as the one he expected, clarified into an obviously feminine form.

She turned and looked back at him, and her eyes glowed violet as bright as stars.

"**Ah,"** Jenova purred. **"There you are."**

The fact that she was so lucid, so easy to understand and to hear, her voice deep and scathing and powerful but almost _human_, made Cloud sick to his stomach. The juxtaposition of all that power, the shimmering violet of her skin, the rosy veinwork running up her smooth arms, with such a human tone and expression was almost painful to see.

"Let him go," he demanded, still breathless.

"**He belongs with me."**

"No." Cloud set his jaw, forced himself to straighten. There was strength in his limbs he hadn't felt before, a power in his body that reminded him of the first time he junctioned materia that wasn't an infant: the strength of the planet, lent to him right now for one express purpose. "Let him go."

"**He belongs to me."**

"He doesn't belong to anyone!" He roared, clenching his hands into fists at his sides. Jenova shrugged her delicate shoulders lightly, closing her eyes, but said nothing. "He never did—you lied to him to make him believe you, you—you broke him to free yourself!"

"**We are the same."**

Cloud shook his head. Jenova gave a high laugh, like screaming metal and broken glass, and it resonated with something deep within him. It felt powerful, more powerful than anything, better than materia and mako and _oh merciful Gaea no wonder he broke for her_.

He ground his teeth and remained unmoved. Jenova surveyed him with the utmost scrutiny, glowing eyes narrowed, full lips pulled into a smirk that looked _nothing_ like that of the man who claimed to be her son.

"**I am his mother. We are the last heirs—"**

"You're not a Cetra," Cloud ground out, expression tight and determined. A warmth settled into the fist of his right hand, followed by a barely-familiar weight he'd never expected to feel again. "You're a liar and a fake." He curled his fingers tight around the weapon now in his grip, reflections of firelight against the blue metal fading as the scene around them turned to black, and raised it to point at the abomination trying to sing him down. "And you're no one's mother."

Jenova's smirk tightened, and she turned entirely around to raised her claw-tipped hands in mocking supplication. She wanted Cloud to make the first move, and he was all too happy to oblige. Raising the massive blade in his hand—Zack's beloved Buster Sword—Cloud set his feet, ducked his head slightly, and lunged.

At first she dodged, pulled back with such fluidity Cloud almost balked. He knew that grace, knew that fluidity; while Cloud have never fought Sephiroth properly himself, he'd seen enough matches between him and the other SOLDIERS, not all of them Firsts, to recognize his abilities when he saw them. No one else moved like that. Not even Zack was close, and he was the closest to Sephiroth's level anyone had ever come.

He had been the closest.

Cloud was still relatively untrained in swordplay, especially with something as unwieldy as Zack's sword, but the memory of his best friend's eyes as he murmured his dying plea for Cloud to kill the man they both loved most in the world kept him moving. Swing, lunge, stab—miss, miss, miss.

He let out a cry of frustration when Jenova expertly avoided yet another blow, but didn't stop. Frantic and infuriated, he broke into all but a run, swinging back and forth over and over and over, refusing to give an inch. Jenova continued her controlled backward motion, avoiding and dodging every swing. The glow in her eyes brightened, and her smirk broke into a sharp-toothed grin.

Pushing forward with a little more force, at last getting close enough to land a blow, Cloud swung again; Jenova just raised her hand to catch the sharp edge of the blade. The look on her face attested to the move being intentional, some sort of scare tactic to show Cloud just how out of his depth he was, but that expression shifted quickly to a look of shock.

The gleaming metal sliced straight through her fingers, split them from her hand, and plowed into the side of her head with such force it knocked her off her feet. She tumbled to the ground, cheekbone utterly shattered, bright violet liquid streaming down the side of her face. Her head snapped up in a wash of silver hair an instant too late to avoid the skull-splitting blow Cloud struck from above, sword slamming and slicing straight into the top of her head, bisecting her skull from crown to jaw.

Jenova screamed and flailed, trifurcated mouth pulling wider and wider, and Cloud had to pull back and drop the sword to clamp both hands over his ears against the sound. He could feel her, every inch of her pushing into him, trying to do to him what she'd doubtlessly done to Sephiroth. If she couldn't defeat him, she would own him, junction his spirit to hers like some twisted materia.

That buffer, the strange distance he'd felt between himself and Sephiroth when they touched before the elite once more ran him through, solidified around him in a flash of bright blue-green, and while the sound continued, the pushing stopped.

It was a barrier, a defense against Jenova. Gaea must have put it in place to protect him; it gleamed like materia, crystallized around him, but still strangely fluid. Cloud tentatively opened his eyes to look out through the glow, felt it pulling closer to his body until it fit against every contour, every joint like perfectly cast armor.

The screaming broke off with an inhuman growl as Jenova pushed herself back up, fingers drawing back to her hand like magnets to metal, fusing on contact. Her face rebuilt, the seam healing slowly

"Let him go," Cloud commanded again, so much stronger now than the first time he'd said it.

The Calamity grated out a laugh, throwing back her healed head as great twin arrays of flesh and bone pushed out from her back, coiling and a muted, earthy pink in color. Just behind her arms, the bizarre twin structures moved in time with her breathing, with her every gesture.

She threw her arms outward, and they spread like wings, burning and glowing with power.

"**Mine,"** she growled, pupils tightened to hair-thin slits. **"You and him and **_**her**_** and this and them and **_**all is mine**_**."**

Cloud set his feet again, raised Zack's sword in preparation.

"**Try to take them from me."**


	5. Monsters of Men

Author's Note: Oh jeez this chapter is laaaate. I'm so sorry. It's also really long, and kinda graphic, and CLIFFHANGERY. I'll try to have the new one out on time to make up for it, okay?

* * *

**V: Monsters of Men**

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* * *

**

Jenova screamed, and Sephiroth stumbled backward in shock. The singing in his head broke off with the howl, the calm and goading adoration burning in his chest going instantly cold. The materia in his skin crackled, snakes of energy jumping from one shard to the next all up and down his body, trading and intermingling to form one great power in place of the miniscule hundreds junctioned to his flesh.

The tendrils of light twisted suddenly, joining together to push into his chest in a glowing latticework of planetary energy, and the force of it put him on his back. Sephiroth's knuckles went white beneath his glove where he gripped the Masamune, sword song raising to fever-pitch while his body convulsed, eyes as wide and unseeing as they'd been when he was found not so very long ago.

Vie scrambled to her feet and away, watching in horror as the silver-haired young man howled and writhed, once again burned by the planet's own blood—this time so much more condensed and so much more invasive than before.

Slowly, tentatively, she moved forward again. Sephiroth's eyes—Cloud's eyes, to her—burned bright enough to hurt when she came around to meet them, shifting constantly between that impossible green of the madman he'd become and the intense, concentrated blue of the young man she'd initially met. His mouth was wide and his voice hoarse but unceasing, scream ragged and filled with pain.

And the materia just kept pushing, the crystals one by one going out as they expelled all the energy they had into his body, fighting some unseen enemy, forming some unseen protection.

The scream trailed into silence and Sephiroth went completely limp as the last strand of light threaded itself into his heaving chest. He stared at the sky with wide, blank eyes for a long moment before finally taking a thick swallow and turning, lethargic, to look up at Vie.

She tensed and pulled back.

"Usurper," he whispered, breathless, tone equal parts exhausted and heartbroken. "Child of thieves." He struggled to rise, grip on his sword tightening again, but succeeded only in pulling the oversized blade closer to him. "Won't let you—" He took a ragged breath. "—take it from me."

Blood began to well up around the shards of dead crystal still imbedded in his skin. Lacking the driving force of the planet's energy to keep them active, the materia shards were little more than slivers of stone driven into his flesh; there was no longer a buffer of magic to keep them from hurting him. Watching a trail of scarlet wind its way down his cheek, staining his hair, Vie felt a swell of what might have been pity.

Young as she was, she knew that this boy, this man, this _creature_ was dangerous. She had no idea how much damage he'd done or how many people he'd killed, but no matter how pitiful he looked now she knew he had to be stopped before he could catch his second wind.

"You're completely mental," she murmured. "I don't want anything from you."

He made another attempt to rise, just as much a failure as the last. "Already took it," he said weakly, closing his eyes and struggling to catch his breath. Blood began to pool around him with startling speed. Without pulling the shards out, the wounds couldn't heal; unable to heal, they would simply continue to bleed.

And his heart beat so fast that his blood practically raced to leave his body.

"Took my…planet…" He ground his teeth, bent his arms and pushed himself up onto his elbows. Vie took a startled step backward, caught between wanting to bolt and looking for something to defend herself with. "Took…_him._" Sephiroth fought himself up to a sitting position. He shifted and stabbed the Masamune into the ground, at a harsh angle and with far too much ease, before changing his grip and using the length of metal as a support in his continued attempt to rise. On his knees, he turned to look back at Vie with those same wide, mad cat's eyes as before.

His voice came out in a deep growl. "Made him one of _you_ instead of one of _me_."

With that, Vie's inner debate ended and she broke into a run. Sephiroth heaved to his feet, jostling more than a few crystal fragments loose—they rattled around in the inside of his sleeves, bounced off the metal of his belt when they dislodged at last from his chest—as he stumbled after her with a roar.

"Because of you!" He bellowed, pulling the Masamune free and giving a swing that arced just short of his target. "He couldn't do it because of you! Not different enough—never different enough—_because of you!_"

Vie gave a cry of terror when she heard the air just behind her sliced in two yet again, felt the wind from the failed strike at her back. Sephiroth just kept moving, and even lurching and stumbling and bleeding he moved quickly enough to catch up, to bridge the gap.

She tripped, and Sephiroth practically jumped to finish her off. Someone behind him cried out, some silhouette in the firelight, and just as he moved to take another swing something hard and heavy slammed into the back of his head with a crack.

Being attacked was a surprise. Not so much in that it came from behind, anyone with half a brain knew better than to take Sephiroth head on, but the fact that someone actually thought to fight back at all.

He jerked forward, bent almost double from the force of the blow, but didn't fall. Thick, spiky silver hair cloaking the face that was only halfway his, Sephiroth took a split second to allow his addled senses to right themselves before straightening and catching the his attacker by the hand just in time to keep her from striking again.

His bright green eyes met the deep hazel of Amaere's. "Oh," he said, voice level and lucid once again, no longer bordering on incoherent through the madness, "that was _not_ a good idea." There was fear in her gaze, etched into her face deeper than anything else, harsh and dark and beautiful, but after a strained second of stunned silence, Mae surprised him.

She reeled back her free hand and punched him in the face, right where the shard still remained imbedded under his eye. The force of the blow jammed the crystal in further, twisted it under his skin and chipped it against his cheekbone; it must have bit into her knuckles as well, probably sliced her hand open, but she didn't even flinch.

Mae screamed, "Vie, run!" at the same time she used Sephiroth's moment of shock and pain from the blow to jerk her hand and haphazard weapon free so she could swing again. It collided with the side of his head, dizzying him for an instant, and in that instant she did it again. The third time he reached up and almost reflexively caught the weapon mid-swing.

Leather-gloved fingers clenched around the wood, and it cracked in two in a mess of splinters and blood and strands of silver hair ripped from his skull. Amaere didn't bother to try pulling it away this time, instead jumping back and shouting at the top of her lungs.

"Agol, _now_!"

Sephiroth heard the siren song of active materia behind him too late; he whirled just in time to see a young man, burned and bruised, raise his hand and shout something in the Ancients' language as loud as he could, gleaming orb set into the metal cuff on his wrist glowing like the sun.

A chill settled into him, he gave one breath—a puff of mist from his lips—and then the very moisture in the air condensed around him in a millisecond, drop after drop careening together into a cyclone of ice.

Blizzaga.

Jenova gave no whisper of reassurance as it pulled in around him, spinning and so cold it burned, the whirlwind snow pulling tighter and tighter until finally solidifying in an instant into a great cocoon of ice. The temperature drop, so sudden it hurt, pushed at the materia fragments still remaining in his body, tightened the molecules further and further until the brittle material couldn't handle it anymore, whined under the strain. They _shattered_, blasting gaping craters in his skin.

Sephiroth, encased in ice and burning alive, screamed.

* * *

Cloud and Jenova stumbled in time, pain exploding within the both of them in perfect time. Through it, Jenova blocked yet another of Cloud's strikes, already in-progress when the pain came, with one of her great monster wings. She shoved outward to knock him away in spite of how deep it bored his sword into her, the metal scraped against bone; Cloud knew he should have given another shove to _break_ that bone, but could barely even move through the pain.

Jenova coughed, and the sound was so eerily normal in spite of her appearance that it made Cloud's stomach clench in response. What was this creature, really? A god from above, come from another sphere to take over a planet, or a _person_?

"**They're killing him,"** she breathed.

Cloud jerked, setting his jaw and struggling to lift his sword through the agony flaring in patches all over his body. "Sephiroth…" He could sense the elite in the back of his head, inexorably connected to him in this shared body—he hadn't thought Jenova shared that connection. The energy shield around him, the fluid materia energy Gaea bestowed to keep him safe, flashed once and the pain abated.

Jenova wasn't so lucky. Her connection to Sephiroth had been forged with such determined intensity, such ferocity that no amount of will could break away from him quickly enough to stop her feeling the echoes of whatever agony he experienced in the world outside. Cloud saw an opportunity, and took it.

Lunging forward, he made another hard downward strike—again Jenova blocked, but this time Cloud gave another push, using strength he'd never before possessed to make sure the swing followed through. This one clove Jenova's right wing from her body.

The Calamity howled and stumbled back, fallen wing pulling sluggishly toward her, trying to rejoin the same way her fingers had but unable to move quickly enough under its own weight.

It was strange, because Cloud knew that none of this existed on a physical level. It was all internal, all mental, just a battle of wills; the fact that Jenova still suffered so much when he struck was almost confusing. Even she had her mental limits, even she couldn't simply will herself to win. Even the great Terror from the Heavens couldn't completely overcome the will of one desperate young man unwilling to just give up those things he loved to madness.

He swung again, at an upward angle this time, using the blade two-handed . The sharp tip just barely sliced into her midsection; even in such a state, she could still convince herself to move.

And to push back.

She let out a horrible cry, like a mako-high bird, and lunged forward with both hands raised to strike. Cloud blocked one with his sword, the other slashed at his chest, razor sharp points slipping through his shield and finally inflicting some noticeable damage.

Blood welled up from the wound, crimson dyeing the blue of his uniform a deep indigo, but the shield closed in another flash and Jenova leapt back to avoid the aftershock of the energy release.

It hurt, and it hurt a lot. Like the prick of a thornbush up in the mountains, something in Jenova's claws kindled a deep ache around the wounds themselves, spreading out into his chest in a haze of pain. Still, this was far less intense than what he'd felt before the buffer limited the echoes from Sephiroth.

Cloud was certain that, if he'd known the truth, Sephiroth would be able to match with Jenova even through that pain. He'd been stabbed and burned and probably shot more than once back during the war, and never once stopped. Cloud had taken part in minor skirmishes in Wutai and in-city conflicts, but nothing like Sephiroth—he didn't have his skill.

_I have given you power, the best way I can._

The memory of Gaea's voice echoed through him, that vision of Sephiroth standing undaunted by the inferno all around him. Cloud felt something in his head shift, as though pulling aside, and something cold and unfamiliar settling into the gap.

He shifted his weight, lifted Zack's borrowed sword, and threw himself into her with renewed vigor.

Now his body knew what it was doing. Reflexes he'd never had, abilities he'd never honed enough to use, a level of skill he'd never dreamed of reaching came to him as naturally as breathing. He understood that this was how Sephiroth fought; this was what he felt like when he fought, this was what he could do.

They shared a mind, locked away with one another under the same skin. Sephiroth's memories, even those set into muscle instead of thought, were as much at Cloud's disposal as they were at Jenova's.

This was a battle of the mind, of wills and opinions and certainties. Jenova knew that Cloud couldn't beat her, so he couldn't. They both knew that Sephiroth could, so as long as Cloud did all he could to be Sephiroth, just for this one battle, he could never possibly lose.

"Fight with me, Seph," he whispered, tightening his two-handed grip on Zack's sword. "We'll take her down together."

* * *

There were a number of things that could happen in the moments it took for a third-level ice spell to melt or break, and more still in the time it would take a body built both of man and monster to stitch itself back together.

Sephiroth hurt, and he howled loud enough that everyone knew. When the ice invaded his mouth and froze him in place, he choked and fell silent. He stood, hurting beyond description but held erect by the freeze, sword humming weakly in his hand, and he thought. He listened, and he thought.

Hurried voices all around him—

"Recharge it!"

"Someone else take the bangle and—"

"Agol's the only one strong enough, and he can't—"

"Someone go get an ether!"

"Gaea, _hurry_!"

—and a low, comfortable murmur in his head.

"_Fight with me, Seph."_

That was the sound that made him think, because he knew that voice. Perhaps not as well as he'd like, but more than well enough. He remembered slate blue eyes and wild blond hair, a tousled set of nightclothes and a shaky salute when Zack hailed him over to say hello.

He remembered wondering how anyone so small could ever expect to make it anywhere in the military, how anyone that wide-eyed could believe they had what it took to take another life on command. He remembered the anxiety in that high, tiny voice when he introduced himself, and how he'd barely believed the name at the time.

He remembered bright violet eyes and messy black hair, and a hand on his back while a familiar voice proclaimed with a laugh, _"No, Seph, that's his real name. Cloud Strife."_

Sephiroth remembered, but Cloud was dead.

His voice echoed, calm and determined.

"_We'll take her down together."_

But Cloud was _dead_.

"M-Mother—" Sephiroth gasped, voice thick through the ice melting in his mouth. "Mother, he's not—he's—"

_He's alive._

The ice strained to hold together, cracking and vibrating and keening under the force of the power roiling around Sephiroth, the atmosphere of the very planet fighting to break the ice.

_That means he's different enough._

In a cacophony of cracking and scraping and a sort of screaming that only cold could create, the frozen prison shattered.

A ripple ran out through the people scrambling around him, every one of them freezing in place for a split second as he tumbled out of his frozen coffin to the ground, onto his hands and knees in a mess of ripped leather and gore, flashes of his insides clear as day where his body had been blown apart. Breath heaving, Sephiroth's body began to pull back together, craters filling in with bone and muscle and sinew, skin pulling taut over the massive breaches in his shape. His right arm, initially more heavily junctioned than the other, went rigid again, broken bones straightening again and growing to fill in the gaps where the force had completely obliterated them in chunks.

He pushed himself up to his knees and held out his left hand.

"Masamune." He didn't have to see the sword spring to his grip; his fingers curled around the black wrapping, tassel swaying just slightly as he rose to his feet. He angled his head back slightly, turning to look at the people around him one by one. They all wore the same expression of shock and disgust, rank with confusion.

He'd seen the look before, of course, both on enemies and allies, friends and foes alike.

_What __**are**__ you?_

The last heir of the planet. The rightful ruler of the world. The child of a god. He straightened and closed his eyes, pushing back the stares and the questions and reaching out for reassurance instead. Jenova would confirm everything, just as she had in Nibelheim. She would sing him up again, whisper his name and trace up his spine to the base of his brain, send a jolt of power through him that proved she couldn't be anything but sincere.

He reached and he listened and he strained—

And Jenova gave no response.

Sephiroth was alone. In that realization, he found a sudden clarity, a train of logic that worked too perfectly to ignore.

Jenova said Cloud was dead.

Cloud was alive.

Jenova said she loved him.

He was in pieces because of her.

Jenova said the planet loved him.

The Masamune whimpered for him to stop.

Like gears set carefully into place, filed to fit perfectly together, the clockwork in Sephiroth's head began to turn. Alone under the stares and bleeding inside, skin dyed hideous blue-black where his injuries still worked to heal, he saw and he felt and he knew more than the claws dug deep in his heart had ever allowed, understood more than he could ever have grasped on his own.

_I have allowed you understanding, in spite of your heart's protest._

It wasn't his memory, the words weren't meant for him, but it didn't matter. They set the workings in him on jewel movements, pushed every component perfectly into place.

Jenova _said_.

She didn't _mean_.

* * *

Cloud made another forward stab, tip of the blade barely grazing Jenova's chest as she reeled backward, carving a violet-black rivulet down her collarbone and over one breast. She ground her teeth and caught on her hands, flipping over in the instant it took for Cloud to draw back and swing again.

She screamed when he sliced her remaining wing clean from her body.

"Let him go!"

Jenova surged to her feet and all but staggered away from him, struggling to breathe as she struggled to stay on her feet, struggled to understand how in all the worlds this child could possibly be besting her so soundly. It wasn't possible; the Cetra couldn't even stand against her, the shapes she'd stolen were too flawless, the songs she sang too enticing to deny. One human boy, blessed by the planet or not, couldn't possibly match the combined strength of all the original children of the planet.

He swung again, and she spun to avoid him, stumbling backward and away. He moved with such fluidity and grace, but there was something wrong; his movements, even the way he angled his head, none of it was right for a body of his size. The swings all seemed cultured to longer limbs, the way he flipped his head quite clearly designed to brush back long hair, the movement of his legs practiced to keep lighter steps than a weapon like his would allow.

As he struck again, goring her shoulder but not breaking through, she could finally see what was truly beating her. The ghost of another, guiding his every motion with long limbs and strong hands, danced in time with Cloud, overlaying everything from those casual shifts of his shoulders to the frequency of his breath.

Cloud wasn't beating her. Sephiroth was.

In the instant she understood, something echoed through her, echoed out through the void all around them, some high pitched keening that made her go instantly rigid and still. It felt like an epiphany, a sudden understanding of something far greater than any of them could grasp, and while it chilled Jenova to her core it only added strength to her opponent.

Cloud angled his borrowed sword and drove forward, running the Calamity through and through, blue metal snapping through her spine and protruding perfectly centered between the stumps of her wings. Still he pushed in, closer and closer until she could see the blue of his eyes through the green of the shield Gaea built him.

"Let him go," Cloud demanded.

Jenova closed her eyes, and knew that she didn't have to. While they fought, in these sparse minutes that she was forced to withdraw from him or risk her absolute destruction, Sephiroth had let _himself_ go. She could reclaim him, just as surely as Meteor burned, but it would take time to gather that strength. And that, she knew, was time she didn't have.

"**He killed you once,"** she rumbled. **"Twice."** She smirked through the blood in her mouth. **"He will do it again."**

The voice of Gaea's most recent chosen was little more than a hiss, the whisper of a breath over skin. "That's not your problem."

She laughed once, then, and reopened her eyes to look up into the dark.

"**Fools, the both of you."**

With that she withdrew, and all those present—attackers, defenders, and observers alike—felt her hold on the shadows go suddenly slack. The shield of condensed Lifestream flowing around Cloud flashed and swirled around him, bright and strong enough to burn, and washed over Jenova in a flood of brilliant green.

She arched her back and the shield surging all around her solidified in another flash of white, giving off a shockwave strong enough to send the boy flying.

* * *

Cloud flew and tumbled, burning and choking, for far longer than he would have thought possible. Finally he careened to a stop on his front, Zack's sword lost somewhere in the flight, and pushed himself up to see.

Jenova was gone. In her place stood that brilliant figure of glowing white, eyes pools of green amid the mask of her smiling face.

**Well done, child.**

He hurt everywhere now, chest aching and eyes burning, but he managed a smile in return. "She's—"

**Not destroyed.**

Cloud's heart dropped into his stomach.

**So long as her body lives, even one cell left corrupt and free of purification, the Calamity cannot die.**

He forced himself to his feet. "But if she's not dead, then why did I just—why did Sephiroth—what's any of this even _for_?"

**She is contained, and you…**

She barely seemed to move, but in a flowing wash of light she stood before him; she reached up to touch his cheek and smile, lips unmoving as she spoke, voice deep and soothing and wonderful in ways Cloud couldn't name.

**Until her those of her legacy can be cleansed, you will be her container.**

She said it with such love, such heartfelt pride in his position, that Cloud couldn't even think of feeling indignant at what transpired here. He—and Sephiroth as well—had somehow been turned into a living prison for the greatest enemy his world had ever known, but under that gaze he couldn't bring himself to care.

He leaned into the touch, basking in the warmth of it, and gave a low, contented sigh.

**I will keep you safe from her, and strong enough to fight her.**

He nodded slightly, eyes drifting shut, and she leaned in to press her lips to his forehead, just as the Cetra girl in the healing grounds had done what felt like so long ago, a memory Cloud could only barely grasp. The shield around him, that buffer that shattered when Gaea stole the energy to contain Jenova, slowly built back up around him.

**The best way I can.**

Slowly, the void bled away around him, like paint washing off a window to reveal another scene. Gaea herself swirled away into a vision of night and sea and flame, and with a loud snap the world came into sudden focus.

He was back in Mideel. _Still_ in Mideel, he supposed, with people rushing all around him, shouting and moving away, some pushing ahead to stand between the space he stood and the people making their retreat. How long had he been gone? More importantly, what had Sephiroth done in that time?

Jenova said they were killing him, but aside from patches of ache up and down his body, Cloud couldn't pick out any injuries worth mentioning. If their body was fine, that meant—

Cloud felt his mouth move, and heard a voice that wasn't his whisper in time. In the back of his head it seemed to echo, overlaying with a deeper, older tone that was more than just familiar.

"I don't understand."

"_Sephiroth!"_

His body—their body—went rigid, and though neither of them spoke a word aloud, Cloud heard Sephiroth's voice as clear as a summer sky over Mount Nibel.

_Cloud._

Gods, he sounded almost scared.

"_Sephiroth,"_ he murmured, quieter now that he had the General's attention, _"what's going on?"_

A moment passed in tense silence; Sephiroth shook his head slowly, then with growing vehemence. His words came out broken aloud, interspersed in the shared cavern of thought with slightly less nonsensical additions. "I don't—" _understand what's going on it can't be that_ "—I'm not—" _everything she said I was everything I felt and knew and heard but_ "—she's—" _silent quiet as death she's dead you're dead you killed her I killed you __**take her down together**__._

Sephiroth reached up with both hands, Masamune keening as it fell from his grip, and clutched at his head, eyes clenched shut as he doubled over and screamed at the top of his lungs. Cloud almost cried out in time, Sephiroth's howl only barely louder than the cacophony of confusion running through his head, leaking into Cloud's perceptions like water from an overfilled canteen.

The people gathered around him—them—jerked and reached up in time, clamping hands over their ears as Sephiroth's scream went up in pitch, layered and echoed and resonating with the energy churning just below the surface of the earth, Lifestream singing up at this body it had helped to rebuild.

Just off the coast, the ocean began to boil. The materia in Agol's bangle started to flicker and glow, pulsing like a heartbeat as Sephiroth's inhuman mind lashed out in search of something, anything he could understand.

This couldn't continue. Cloud could feel the mako running below the surface roiling and crashing against the underside of the ground, vibrating up through the earth from the sheer force of Sephiroth's will, his call for stability. He might not have been an Ancient, but whatever Sephiroth was—son of the Calamity, child of a monster mistaken for the last daughter of a wounded god—it was certainly equal, at the very least, with that lost species.

Cloud whimpered for him to stop, begging and pulling at his psyche, struggling to force him down to no avail. Sephiroth clenched and screamed and the mako well below Mideel thrummed in time, surging and struggling to meet him. The ground at his feet cracked, something glowing and green bubbled up over their boots.

That alluring feeling, the siren song that had cut through the security of the Masamune's resonance when Cloud woke up in this tiny village, rose in the back of his throat like the tang of blood. That's what it was—that well of planetary blood just under the surface harmonizing with the mako in his system. Breaking through the surface caused such a heavy energy release, thick and sharp and sweet like cotton candy, like sugar water, clinging to his insides like half-dried corn syrup, it almost sent Cloud reeling. If he'd been in control of their shared body, it probably would have.

Gods, what could he do? Sephiroth was unstoppable, his screams cut like white-hot metal through wax, if he kept this up then the whole of Mideel would be swallowed up by the Lifestream. But what could he possibly do?

'_Keep me restrained. Stop me.'_

Sephiroth continued to scream.

'_I love you—stop me.'_

Steeling himself, Cloud did the only thing he could: He took hold of Sephiroth, willed him into his arms, and pulled the shaking light of his consciousness backward into the black. The General's hold on their container broke, and for an instant before Cloud withdrew he felt muscles go slack, felt this body he'd been shunted into collapse in a crumpled heap of silver hair and blood and tattered black leather.

* * *

It was like going mad, he thought. Everything collapsing all around him, caving in and sinking, dragging him down to where it was cold and dark and unfamiliar—and yet quiet and subtle, letting him build his own fears in the gaps of silence and low, whispered warnings of what he was up against.

It was like being seven years old, looking up into burning red eyes smoldering like fire through a curtain of black hair, sharp teeth glinting in the low, yellowed light—and not understanding in the what in the name of any god was going on as long pale fingers reached out and touched the sides of his face, brushing back silver-white hair as that mouth pulled into a weak, pained smile.

And then red was blue and black was gold, and Cloud leaned over him, touching his cheek with one pale hand and whispering his name.

Everything snapped into focus.

_Everything_.

No voices in his head, no shrill hiss of materia in his skin or in the air around him, even the Masamune was silent. It was just him, and just Cloud. He realized it wasn't like going mad at all. This chill, this detachment, this sense of being really and truly alone in himself—this was what it felt like to go _sane_.

How did humans bear it?

"Sephiroth…?"

He looked up at him from where he lay, pulled rather awkwardly into the younger man's lap, and blinked owlishly once, twice, three times before his lips parted and his voice came out in a ragged croak.

"Cloud."

His reaction was instantaneous. Cloud all but doubled over, burying his face in the older man's neck—although it felt strange somehow, the contact muffled like words overheard through a wall—and heaving a shaky sigh of relief. "Oh thank _god_."

One hand ghosted up Cloud's back, tangled into his hair, and held him there for a minute. He couldn't feel him properly, but he could smell him, and whether that sense was genuine or through a memory powerful enough to rekindle as they lay in this dark, shared recess of spirit didn't matter. The clawing inside him calmed, soothed by Cloud's closeness in spite of the barrier between them, and he relaxed.

Cloud pulled back first, searching his face with wide, mako-bright blue eyes. "Are you all right now?"

Sephiroth's mouth worked for a moment, then he closed his eyes and forced himself to sit up, taking a steadying breath. "I…believe so." His eyes narrowed slightly in thought as he tried to piece everything back together, tried to form the puzzle of these last hours into a coherent picture.

The image formed made him jerk and turn to stare at Cloud. "You—You killed her. Jenova, my mother, you—"

"That thing is not your mother," Cloud interjected, young face stern. The glow in his eyes intensified slightly, and Sephiroth couldn't possibly doubt his certainty. It hummed around him, nudged at the edges of Sephiroth's entire being with such confidence that to refuse it entry would be like turning off the sun. "I don't know what she is to you," he continued, "but if that thing is your mother then I'm President Shinra."

Sephiroth held a hand to his head, pinching the bridge of his nose and closing his eyes. "Right," he whispered. "Right, I know, I—" He phrased it the only way he could make any sense of the realization. "She _says_, she doesn't _mean_."

Cloud seemed to understand, because he nodded. He didn't move to stop Sephiroth as he rose to his feet, although he did hesitate for a split second when the older man turned and offered a hand to help him rise. Now, why would he—

Oh. Right.

Sephiroth gripped his hand tightly and pulled him up to his feet, letting go and looking away as soon as he could manage. "Where are we?"

"Inside," Cloud supplied, and Sephiroth could taste the word in his mouth as well. "The place you go when you think. Only…we share it. Now."

"Because we're in the same body."

Cloud nodded.

"…Gaea did it."

Another nod.

"Why?" He instinctively reached for the memory, but something kept him restrained; those weren't his memories, and Cloud was well-protected against at least intentional prying now. Whatever had happened, it had left him with quite the barrier against willful intrusion.

Cloud blinked. "You don't remember?"

He remembered a blur of fire and mako and burning, deep voices and a sense of maternal familiarity, anger and confidence and a thousand other things, and though there were parts that made perfect sense, parts he could see with all the clarity of a summer day in Costa del Sol, others were nothing more than a swirling mess of color and emotion.

"We're supposed to keep Jenova restrained," Cloud explained, understanding Sephiroth's confusion without needing a verbal response. "We're her…container." He looked away, rubbed the back of his neck, eyes going dark and distant. He didn't sound completely confident now either. "That's what Gaea said, anyway." He hesitated for a moment, swallowing thickly. "She's…not an Ancient. Jenova. Gaea said—"

"I don't care what she said," Sephiroth stated, voice darker and sharper than he'd intended. "It doesn't matter. You killed her, didn't you?"

Cloud shook his head. The confusion Sephiroth felt at that boiled over easily, and Cloud hurried to explain all Gaea had shown him. He spoke of visions of the past, secrets, Cetra and stars and a monster known as the Calamity who took the guise of dead loved ones to make monsters of men.

In his words, the story he wove, Sephiroth found a sort of sense he'd never known before. It still didn't explain his part in things, where he'd come from or why he was _this_ while everyone around him was quite clearly not, but it was…cathartic. He once again had no idea where he stood, but without Jenova murmuring in his head and doubtless reveling in the flavor of his insecurities, it didn't hurt so much.

He wanted to tell Cloud that he and the Calamity were too tightly linked, too alike for there to be no connection at all, wanted to remind him of very silver hair and clearly slit-pupilled eyes on the violet-skinned figure in the tank at the reactor, but he held his tongue.

"…I think that's sort of like what she did to you," Cloud completed. "Only instead of infecting you physically, she just…dug into your head."

An apt description; Sephiroth wondered how much of Jenova's hold the younger man had been able to sense before it broke. He nodded once, squinting in thought.

Then he jerked as a rush of pain ran through him, strong enough to make him choke.


End file.
